Mission: Possible

WSJ / OpinionJournal.com ^ | May 25, 2007 | Kimberley Strassel

[CutePuppy]

If there's a smarter guy in Washington right now than Sen. Chuck Schumer, Republicans haven't noticed. The New York Democrat is doggedly working to dismantle what's left of the Bush presidency, with barely an ounce of pushback from the other side. Mr. Schumer was the instigator of the Democrats' probe into the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, although note that the question of who fired which prosecutor is already yesterday's news. The attorneys mess was just an opening, a hook that is now allowing Mr. Schumer to escalate into an assault on the wider administration, as well as presidential authority over key programs, such as wiretapping.

The ultimate goal? Surround the Bush presidency in a mist of incompetence and corruption, force Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to go, get a special prosecutor appointed to examine the many supposed misdeeds, and then sit back and ride the steady drip-drip of negative Bush headlines all the way to more Senate seats and the Oval Office. Lucky for Mr. Schumer--who leads his party's election effort as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee--most of his GOP counterparts are blankly sitting by.

Nothing exemplified the Schumer strategy better than last week's staged testimony of former Deputy Attorney General James Comey. Democrats entitled the hearing "Part IV" of their investigation into whether the Department of Justice was "Politicizing the Hiring and Firing of U.S. Attorneys." Curiously, Mr. Comey was the sole witness, and more curiously, Mr. Schumer appeared to be running the show in place of Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy. Yet all became clear when Mr. Schumer explained that his real concern wasn't so much this ole piddling attorneys thing as it was that "law and order take a back seat to the political needs of the president's party."

.....

[CutePuppy]

2006 elections weren't that much about Iraq - Schumer and Emanuel ran national campaign on "corruption" and "incompetence", GOP "incompetently" tried to run local campaigns instead of nationalizing them and putting Kennedy-Clinton-Pelosi-Murtha-Jefferson-Mollohan faces and agenda on local "conservative" Democrats.

And after the "lesson" of 2006, they seem ready to do it again - picking the issues that divide us and fighting with each other about who to throw first to feed the crocodile.

[Bonaparte]

I hope the crocs enjoy their king jorge appetizer.

[CutePuppy]

Mr. Schumer had cooked up this dramatic event with Mr. Comey a week in advance, though that should come as little surprise. It was the senator who signed off on Mr. Comey's 2002 appointment as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, where the two men would have forged a relationship. Mr. Comey is himself one of those self-styled Boy Scouts who hasn't in the past been averse to inflicting damage on the president who appointed him. It was Mr. Comey, as deputy attorney general, who named his buddy Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the Valerie Plame leak. Mr. Comey then checked out and the result was the Scooter Libby conviction.

[Lancey Howard]

Lucky for Mr. Schumer--who leads his party's election effort as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee--most of his GOP counterparts are blankly sitting by.

Yep, lucky.
The GOP needs a major housecleaning. We need to find people with guts. A few pit bulls.
And until they show up on the horizon, "no soup for you", GOP. My checkbook is closed.

[HisKingdomWillAbolishSinDeath]

I love man’s ego. Can barely get past 70 years before returning to dust-ville, and he thinks he runs the universe.

[tiger-one]

Continue to pound the RNC, your local RNC. Here in NH they sat back and let the commies take over, not only the state but our Reps in Washington.

[Leisler]

The Republican elite are repulsed by street fighters, working class, small business, classical patriots. It’s a financial/country club/private school organization that mostly lives in armed guarded communities away from the riffraff and their petty beatings.

[Leisler]

beatings=bleetings.

[tgusa]

Bingo!! We have a perfect example in our Senator, John Warner, the ‘statesman.’ I now donate $$ directly to the candidates of MY choice, not the RNC’s, RSCC, etc.

[sirchtruth]

Wait a minute. If you mean to imply "moderates" by "Country Clue Repub" then your hitting the nail on the head.

I know what did it in 1994. Newt changed the mindset of enough conservative repubs to make them realize "conservatism" matters. Now, here today I'm not sure if one of them get it at all?

Until the grassroots start really fighting for conservative control it's useless to expect anything from these wusses in congress.

[Daveinyork]

Bush’s biggest mistake was not getting rid of disloyal members of the executive branch at the very start of his administration. It’s been coming back to haunt him ever since.

[libstripper]

The really horrible thing about Comey is he was appointed by Bush in 2002 as U.S. Attorney for the Southern Disgtrict of New York with Schumer's consent, another superb example of how this administration actually seems to go looking for guns to shoot itself in the foot with. Comey, of course, returned the favor by appointing Fitzfong.

[snowrip]

I can’t wait for the next round of primaries!

[yoe]

Sent this article onto the GOP for what ever good that will do. Isn’t it about time that some dirt was dug up about Chuck boy, old or new and spread around. I am so sick and tired of the time wasted, facts obliterated, on percieved wrong doings by the Bush administration. Why, for instance, were the firings of 98 lawyers by Bill Clinton never attacked or investigated? As was said on this thread, Bush should have fired all Clinton people when he took office.