DoJustice [was "The prosecutor purge"]

[fern hill]

Let it be, skdadl.

Yes, there are some fine Merkins.

And isn't it breathtakingly wonderful how the Hive Mind works? In the old days, a document dump was a terrific strategy because the MSM are largely a bunch of lazy stupid louts. It was easy to bury them in paperwork. But what genius to use the blogosphere to parse the stuff! I think we're beginning to see the beginnings of the web's influence on the Real World. Power to the people!

[Croghan27]

WOW fern -

But what genius to use the blogosphere to parse the stuff! I think we're beginning to see the beginnings of the web's influence on the Real World.

That is an analysis I have not seen before - the once fine mind has been too influenced by commercial/personal matters and has never thought of the blog-is-phere as being a critical organ. (Even if I use it as such.)

Thass twice today I am in your debt, may I use you for footnotes and references?

[fern hill]

Thass twice today I am in your debt, may I use you for footnotes and references?

Go straight for plagiarism. This is the Interweb.  :wink:

[Croghan27]

Go straight for plagiarism. This is the Interweb.  :D

 

I attended a Catholic University - arguably it became less catholic after my arrival, but that is another story.  :wink:

A friend of mine in first year (we later married women who were housemates), who became a lawyer (of course) tried to copy a history essay from the french to english and got caught!  :evil:

The professor wrote all over the returned essay, in this very catholic university: "Plagiariam is a worse sin than mastrubation."  :shock:

I have sinned enough in this life to add to it now.  :D

[GDKitty]

Maybe it's just because I'm a vet of the summers of 1973 and 1974, but it amazes me that so few Canadians are watching what looks to me more and more like a repeat.

It's amazing how this administration has managed to pull off a GulfofTonkin-cum-Watergate-cum-Irancontra in just 6 short years, eh?  Some of the players from those by-gone scandals are still around to "taste it again, for the first time"---Fielding, Conyers (though in a reprise of his good-guy role). Nevermind all of the Irancontries skulking around.

I've had a half-composed post about this burning a hole in my text-editor all week. I was going to post it today before I got called into work. Mebbe Sunday. Mebbe not.

[skdadl]

Croghan funny.  :)

Y'know why I leapt yesterday, Kitty? I finally decided to treat my procrastination as if I were in therapy or recovery or something. I announced to my co-bloggers that I was doing it. So then ... I had to.   :oops:

I left so much out, though. Even of the limited material I have in my own tiny mind, I left so much out.

Ah, I remember John Conyers from that wonderful spring and summer, Conyers and Barbara Jordan and Elizabeth Holtzman (who I gather is still around doing interesting things, although not in the House), and even dear Peter Rodino, who looked as though he was surprising himself by being noble.  

And Fred Fielding! The first time I heard his name again, I kept thinking "That Fred Fielding?" Yup; it is. He got out of the Nixon White House before things got really serious, though. But what is that man made of? Cripes -- he's older than I am, a lot older. Don't any of these people believe in retiring? When I was googling around to remind myself about Fred's career, I came across an interview someone did with John Dean, Fielding's old boss, when Bush first took Fielding on board. Dean was fairly nice to Fred -- and we know he'd be critical if he could -- but he did end by saying that he thought Fred was maybe a bit too much into the executive-privilege Kool-Aid of late.

[Croghan27]

Is there a Canadian equivilant of 'executive-privilege'? If there were I supposed that it would be exercized by the GG, at the direction of the Government.

I cannot recall any incidences of it, or are they just disguised as something else?

With all respect due to the Great Republic to the south, even they will admit we have something recognizable as a functioning democracy and have managed without anachronisms like that, from medieval times of Kings and Divine rights.

We have our own anachronisms.  

[skdadl]

John Dean on executive privilege

Fred Fielding is in there towards the end, but there is much much more.

[Croghan27]

John Dean on executive privilege

Fred Fielding is in there towards the end, but there is much much more.

These days I am often reminded of John leCarre's (George Smiley) comment that even the worst system in the world can produce benevolence if operated with kindness and caring, while the best will produce terror if controlled by inhumanity.

It looks like some point between the two has been reached.

oh .. great link - thanks   :D

[fern hill]

OMG, I wish I'd made this up:

ONE of eight US government prosecutors sacked for alleged poor performance in the latest White House scandal was the inspiration for the Tom Cruise character in the hugely successful Hollywood film, A Few Good Men.
David Iglesias, the basis for the character in the film played by Cruise, led a court martial defence of one of three men who, under orders, roughed up a fellow marine who wanted to get out of Guantanamo Bay.

The case became the stuff of Hollywood legend after another attorney working on it gave the facts to her brother, Aaron Sorkin, who used them as the inspiration for his play and, later, a screenplay.

A Few Good Men gave actor Jack Nicholson what has become one of the most famous lines in 20th-century film history: "You can't handle the truth."

The Australian

[GDKitty]

fern hill:  Tom Cruise is the glue that holds my (would-be) post on the attorney-firings together!  The Duke Cunningham connection to Top Gun & Iglesias' connection with A Few Good Men.  Both nuggets appeared at the end of a WaPo article, dated March 1st. I never would have noticed that myself---Rachel Maddow mentioned it on her show.

[skdadl]

Weird.

Gee: Tom Cruise. He popped up in the Libby trial too! What a guy!  :D

(At some point in his frantically busy, super-important-person schedule, Libby took time off to receive Cruise, who wanted to talk to him and Dick about how the Germans persecute Scientologists [which they do]. That cast some doubt on how frantically busy and super-important Scooter's schedule was, although Judith Miller was even more fun.)

Small world, eh?

[skdadl]

This is just too excruciatingly funny.

Alberto Gonzales has to appear on a panel today in Chicago, with Patrick Fitzgerald, ostensibly to discuss a justice dep't campaign to protect kids from online predators. Wonderful goal, of course.

But you just know what is going to happen. I'm sure that Fitzgerald will take the high road, as he always does ... but I sure hope there are some smart reporters present who will hold Alberto's feet to the fire.

[transplant]

Maybe it's just because I'm a vet of the summers of 1973 and 1974, but it amazes me that so few Canadians are watching what looks to me more and more like a repeat.

Same here, skdadl.

I have such vivid memories of being at a massive sit-down demonstration outside the US Dept of Justice as another Attorney General of the United States glowered down upon us. Would the DC cops rush us with their batons, or would they simply place us under arrest and carry us off to the waiting busses one at a time?

Thankfully it was the latter, and I fondly recall that while I may have been arrested, it was John Mitchel who did time.

Dare I hope it be so again?

[belva]

The rumor mills are running full speed ahead.

Had a call from a law school classmate who now works for a firm (private--lots of civil rights litigation for worthy folks)  in the District of Columbia--rumor is that AG's resignation is coming before end of the week! :?

One can only hope!!!!!!!!!!!!!!