Political Bloviation

Josh Marshall on why Bush never asked for Gonzo’s resignation:

Talking Points Memo | NYT: Impeach Gonzales
…in almost 220 years of history under the constitution, the impeachment power has never been used to remove a cabinet secretary from office. Not once. And that’s really saying something. But the reason isn’t that hard to figure given the structure of our government. The normal course when a cabinet secretary has been implicated in grave wrongdoing or has lost the confidence of the overwhelming number of senators (which I think he clearly has, though partisan loyalty has kept many Republicans from saying it) is for him or her to resign. And if they won’t see fit to resign the president fires them since if nothing else the person can’t fulfill the responsibilities of office under those debilitating circumstances.

But then there is the big ‘unless’.

Unless the president is party to the wrongdoing that placed the cabinet secretary in jeopardy. And that is clearly the case we have here, which explains the historical anomaly that the possibility of Gonzales’ impeachment is even a topic of serious conversation.

Of course, here, as we’ve noted before, there is an extra wrinkle. Gonzales isn’t any cabinet secretary — not the Secretary of State or Interior. He’s the Attorney General, which means that he’s the one that can and is bottling up numerous investigations into the president and his appointees. Because the senate will never give the president another Gonzales, the man is literally irreplaceable.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS