The Washington Post has put up the text (all in pdf) of the e-mails exchanges and memos written by Justice Department and White House staff regarding the effort to remove U.S. attorneys.

The documents were obtained by The Washington Post and detail the political considerations and calculations made by key administration personnel:

• Set 1
• Set 2
• Set 3
• Set 4

• Washington Post: The Grand Elusion
• Ruth Marcus: Time to Go, Mr. Gonzales
• N.Y. Times Editorial: Politics, Pure and Cynical
• Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen has the first in a multi-part series in the Washington Post on the case against Alberto Gonzales.

Chris and Matt begin to understand. I had to chuckle a bit at this one, though I totally agree, and did a week ago:

[P]rogressives get whipped into voting for a compromise, and Blue Dogs get to "vote their conscience." Progressives are expected to compromise their beliefs, but then the leadership won't even stand up and fight for a compromise they wrangled out of the progressives. If the leadership is suddenly giving up on whipping votes after spending so long working on whipping votes, it can only mean one of two things. On the one hand, it means that they now have 218 votes, and are letting everyone else go. On the other hand, it means they have given up on trying to reach 218 altogether. . . .

Uh, yeeeepp. That's why I urge the Out of Iraq Caucus to vote NO on this bill.

The NYTimes articulates what we have all known for years - Alberto Gonzales is a corrupt, inept, mendacious lackey. WE said so back in January 2005, when we opposed his confirmation as Attorney General. In any event, the NYTimes has good words on the subject:

We wish we’d been surprised to learn that the White House was deeply involved in the politically motivated firing of eight United States attorneys, but the news had the unmistakable whiff of inevitability. This disaster is just part of the Bush administration’s sordid history of waving the bloody bullhorn of 9/11 for the basest of motives: the perpetuation of power for power’s sake.

Time and again, President Bush and his team have assured Americans that they needed new powers to prevent another attack by an implacable enemy. Time and again, Americans have discovered that these powers were not being used to make them safer, but in the service of Vice President Dick Cheney’s vision of a presidency so powerful that Congress and the courts are irrelevant, or Karl Rove’s fantasy of a permanent Republican majority.

. . . Gonzales, who has shown why he was such an awful choice for this job in the first place, should be called under oath to resolve the contradictions and inconsistencies in his story. Mr. Gonzales is willing to peddle almost any nonsense to the public (witness his astonishingly maladroit use of the Nixonian “mistakes were made” dodge yesterday). But lying to Congress under oath is another matter. . . .

I don't think it quite that different. Indeed what he has done before, enabling torture particularly, seems worse to me. But begone with him. He never should have been in the government in the first place.

The BUCKet (of crap) stops on my assistant said Alberto Gonzales:

Gonzales also accepted the resignation of his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. The aide, along with then-White House Counsel Harriet Miers, had begun discussing possible firings of U.S. attorneys in early 2005, according to e-mails released Tuesday. . . . "He's a standup guy," [Dan] Bartlett said of Gonzales.

What a remarkable thing to say as Gonzo not only did not stand up, he just dumped it on his former assistant. What a piece of work.

Gonzo should not only resign, he really needs some lessons on being a decent human being. What a lying weasel.

I just got back from the courthouse picking up my press pass for 5280 to cover the trial of Qwest former CEO Joseph Nacchio which begins Monday. There will be a lot of national press folks in town for it, including Bloomberg News, the Wall St. Journal and NPR. The Rocky Mountain News and Denver Post will also be covering it.

Nacchio is charged with 42 counts of insider trading resulting from the sale of $100 million in Qwest stock in 2001. In 2000, Qwest was trading at $66.00 a share. In 2002, it was down to $5.00.

Qwest bought U.S. West in 2000.

The highlights for me will be opening statements and the testimony of those who accepted immunity or plea deals in exchange for cooperation against Nacchio.

More....

My nemesis (not really) Matt Stoller says these are the Congresspersons who betrayed Dems on the Iraq withdrawal legislation:

Michael Arcuri (NY-24)
John Barrow (GA-12)
Melissa Bean (IL-08)
Dan Boren (OK-02)
Jim Cooper (TN-05)
Bud Cramer (AL-02)
Brad Ellsworth (IN-08)
Kirsten Gillibrand (NY-20)
Baron Hill (IN-09)
Tim Mahoney (FL-16)
Jim Marshall (GA-08)
Mike McIntyre (NC-07)
John Peterson (PA-05)
John Salazar (CO-03)
Joe Sestak (PA-07)
Heath Shuler (NC-11)
Gene Taylor (MS-04)

Some of these folks do not care what we think. Some should. All are making a big mistake, policy-wise and politically. But because the Republicans will provide no more than 8 to 10 votes for this Dem legislation, this bill can go down to defeat and should. Who can be those heroes?

The Next Hurrah is on the Rudy Giuliani - Alan Placa relationship.

Placa and Giuliani became friends when they were 13-14, when they began High School, and remained close friends through College. Post college Placa went to the Seminary, and Giuliani off to Law School. After he was ordained, Placa went off to Law School too. Eventually he became a Monsignor in the Diocese of Rockville Center, Long Island NY, and as we know Giuliani went to DC to Reagan's DOJ. When Giuliani needed an Annulment of his first marriage, Placa did the job.

But Monsignor Placa got into considerable trouble in the late 1990's and early 2000 era, when he not only was accused of abuse of two minors, who could not sue him or the diocese because the five year statute of limitations was long past, but when the whole huge story broke, first in Boston, and then across the country, Monsignor Placa comes up in several parts of it. While serving on Long Island, he had developed a legal strategy for dealing with abuse complaints that involved having an "intervention team" that met with family members and the abused, without revealing that Placa was indeed the Diocese Lawyer on such matters. Placa took great pride that in cases that if litigated might cost the Diocese Millions, he could frequently manipulate the situation, and get out for a few thousand. Of course the Monsignor was flying a false flag -- he was not a spiritual counsel, he was the Bishop's Lawyer. He traveled the country teaching Bishops the technique -- apparently 200 cases where he was successful outside his own diocese.

Where is the national media on this? Sara at Next Hurrah says, "To read all the bloody details, what you do is google the two names, Alan Placa and Rudy Giuliani, and you can read about it for hours, should you have a taste for Priestly Pedophilia and the investigations of recent years thereof.

Senator Edward Kennedy has a diary up at Daily Kos addressing the nation's need for immigration reform. Best line:

We must find a better solution to our immigration crisis than raids that rip families apart.

His staff will be answering questions in the comments, and he will personally respond to some tomorrow.

Update: The transcript of the press conference is here.

*****

Live-Blogging Attorney General Alberto Gonzales''s News Conference on the U.S. Attorney firings. Scroll down for updates. Also check out TRex at Firedoglake.

Shorter version: I'm responsible and accountable but I'm staying on the job and will find out what happened.

2:15 p.m. Things he believes in:

The independence of the U.S. Attorneys. The AG and all all U.S. Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. He believes in the role of the Senate in the confirmation process He believes in accountability. He is responsible. He accepts responsibility. He acknowledges mistakes here and will find out what went wrong.

He's overcome a lot of obstacles to become AG. He's not going to give up. He's committed to doing his job and that is what he intends to do here.

More...

CREW has sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales demanding the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the firing of U.S. Attorneys.

Recent revelations indicate that a top-ranking Department of Justice official knew that statements made by top Department officials were not true. Clearly, the Department of Justice cannot investigate itself and prosecute the misconduct of DOJ officials. CREW also asked the Department of Justice’s Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility to investigate the situation.

Crew's position:

At daily kos, BarbinMD writes a must read post on Blue Dogs and Iraq. The heart of the matter:

I called all 43 of the Blue Dog Dems and asked:

Does the Congressman support requiring that all troops are properly rested, trained and equipped before being sent to Iraq?

A simple yes or no question. And some of the answers I received?

I'll have to get back to you on that.

Well I'm sure she does in principle...let me get back to you.

I'm pretty sure he does...let me get back to you.

Ummm, that's a sensitive issue. I'll get back to you

I'd like to run that by him. I haven't heard that question before. . . .

I was not of a strong opinion on the Fox Nevada debate. But I have always detested Bill O'Reilly. I also have contempt for Lanny Davis. Here he provides all the evidence you need:

O’REILLY: . . . The Soros-Lewis mob despises Fox News because we have their number and we report on them accurately. . . . These people use techniques perfected by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi minister of information. They lie, distort, defame, all the time. . . . The Fox News Channel has been fair to the Democratic Party and will continue to be fair. . . Let’s go to another honest guy here [See O'Reilly calls him himself honest here], Lanny Davis. . . .

DAVIS: You know, I’m inclined to give everybody the benefit of the doubt here except the people that are calling for cancellation of the debate because they don’t like Fox. . . . We got to be talking to everybody, and I disagree with this pressure from Daily Kos and MoveOn.org to cancel the debate. I think anybody that took that pressure including John Edwards ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Lanny Davis sits with Bill O'Reilly, listens to him compare people to Nazis and says nothing, and Daily Kos and Move On should be ashamed of themselves? John Edwards should be ashamed of himself? Lanny Davis is not only detestable, he is insane.