The American Spectator

Reader Mail

A Clinton Portfolio

3.19.07 @ 12:01AM

(Page 3 of 5)

Then there is the way that Bush has allowed Scooter Libby to be the fall guy in the Plame/Wilson mess, when it should have been Armitage. But he is a Colin Powell guy. Can't let him be tarnished.

Then there is the fact that the heads of the CIA and FBI were NOT fired after 9-11. Instead they go out with White House medals and a band playing. Then there is the President's (or Sec. Powell's) hand picked guy that is sent to run Iraq, he screws up royally, turns the mess back over to the military, and gets out of Dodge. Oh, and he also gets a White House medal amidst Ruffles and Flourishes.

On and on the list of missteps goes. Shoving illegal amnesty down the throats of Americans when 70 to 80 percent say no. Oh, and while in Mexico meeting with their Presidente, he makes public comments about how hard he is working to advance their interests with the American people and the American government. Praising and bowing and scraping to the most vicious of the Dems while bashing the base that got you elected. The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is the one thing where the Presidential instincts were right, but the implementation of the policy leaves much to be desired, (PC war fighting is always wrong) and the public justification has been less than totally convincing to a huge swath of the American public.

It would seem that this administration is racing full out to break or tie Jimmy Carter's record for incompetence. They may be lucky and have time run out before taking 1st place.
-- Ken Shreve
New Hampshire

Of course, Mr. Hillyer's assessment that "the administration created its own quicksand and stepped right into it" is on-target, though I suggest they also stepped into something smellier.

What's troubling is how their gross political and managerial ineptness continues to overshadow whatever competent, significant actions Mr. Bush and his administration may have accomplished or are in the process of executing. But as the Wall Street Journal editorialized on March 14, "When it comes to 'politicizing' [the Department of] Justice...the Bush White House is full of amateurs compared to the Clintons."

The WSJ referred to how, just after co-presidents Bill and Hillary Clinton took office in 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno and Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell, a former Rose Law Firm partner of Mrs. Clinton and the Clinton's go-between with DOJ, dismissed U.S. attorneys. In that unprecedented action by an administration, all 93 attorneys fell simultaneously to Reno and/or Hubbell's axe. From that mass firing, at least one key investigation -- of the Clintons and their part in the Whitewater scandal -- died.

But did the Democrats, liberals and their mouthpieces in the mainstream news media rise then in gum-flapping apoplectic condemnation about that White House driving those firings? And, now, have they even had the integrity to acknowledge or refer to what the Clintons did?
--- C. Kenna Amos
Princeton, West Virginia

Through all of the rhetoric from the right and the left about the firing of the eight U.S. Attorneys, there is one point that seems to get lost. That is the dictum from former Attorney General John Ashcroft: "You have to leave politics at the door to do this job properly."

The issue is not the President's right to appoint USAs. That is the expectation at the beginning of Presidential terms and chief executives from both parties have exercised this right without controversy. However, once in place, the expectation has been that the attorneys would remain on the job throughout the President's term so they could do their job without fear of negative political repercussions. At least until now.

What is disturbing about the firings is not bureaucratic incompetence or the lack of good public relations; it is a callous disregard for the rule of law and the legal machinery necessary to protect this vital American value.
-- Mike Roush
North Carolina

It's Goodbye, Alberto, any day now, as Attorney General Gonzales reroutes any thoughts of a Supreme Court appointment to instead preparing for Congressional hearings over the sloppy handling of the U.S. attorney firings, and as the Bush team readies to push him out the door as a liability that could sink a ship already going down (Bumbling into a Scandal, March 16). Gonzales thought he didn't need conservative support during his heady tenure, when he filed legal briefs in favor of affirmative action, race-based admissions at universities and mouthed the elite party line of pro-illegal alien advocacy of his boss. At the time, he didn't care about us peasant conservatives at the bottom of the food chain, and now that his job is at stake he has no base to draw on for support. Adios, Alberto. Maybe you can get a job picking lettuce with your boss at another photo op in Mexico.
-- Caroline Miranda
North Hollywood, California

WHY FRED
Re: Jeffrey Lord's Playing Ball With the Base:

I say, I do believe that Mr. Lord has identified the nub of the matter. The only true believer conservative Republican that has been elected since at least 1925, has been Ronald Reagan. Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, the two Bushes, they may or may not have been decent Presidents and men, but please, they were NOT conservatives. I would opine that is precisely why there is such an unease within the ranks of conservatives. History has taught us to expect to be double crossed by the politicians that we work so hard to elect.

In my particular case, this has led me to pray nightly for Sen. Fred Thompson to enter the race for the GOP nomination. Aside from his many good qualities, he simply seems to come down on the conservative side of almost any issue reflexively. I am convinced that he is conservative in his bones, like Ronald Reagan was, and he knows how to play the game and, I believe, plays to win. If it is our karma to lose in 2008, I prefer to go down with all guns blazing beside a man that seems so reflexively conservative. Besides, no one has convinced me that a real, true conservative will not win.
-- Ken Shreve
New Hampshire

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