The definite spin zone

I will take advantage of this "brief?" window of opportunity to post a couple other things.

The fear that virtually any piece of communication will have to be turned over has paralyzed department officials' ability to communicate effectively and respond in unison to the crisis, as has the fact that senior Justice officials themselves say they still don't know the entire story about what happened that led to the crisis. So they are afraid that anything they put down on paper could be viewed as lies or obfuscation, when in fact, the story is changing daily as new documents are found and as the Office of Legal Counsel conducts its own internal probe into the matter.

I'm having a problem with this, but am not sure what all I think.

In political positioning and strategizing, inside and outside government, there is brainstorming and suggestions on how to spin information or gain political advantage.

In some cases these email exchanges might include illegal activity because the author doesn't realize they are illegal. Such strategies, if not enacted, aren't necessarily illegal activity.

How can government or a company function if every word put in an email must be considered, by non-attorneys, for its legal ramifications and the realization it may become evidence in a future grand jury or criminal investigation or lawsuit?

In the US attorney firings, the emails are very good evidence and I'm glad we have them, but the ramifications are frightening.

I seriously doubt there is anything illegal with the firings. Immoral, political, unethical, vindictive, shameful all apply, but not illegal. Bush can fire any US attorney at any time. That he did it for political reasons is beside the point. Attacking a foreign country and killing civilians is illegal. Choose your fights.

Perhaps my unease is this. I'm not allowed to wire-tap an individual. So why am I now privy to personal emails between government employees? Maybe only prosecutors with a "need to know" should be accessing such things. They can interrogate the people involved to attempt to determine the level of legal understanding and criminal intent, but the political manipulation should be withheld from public scrutiny.

From The Anonymous Liberal

I think we should gum this to death: ask the Senators to give Tim a chance, meet with him, give him some time in office to see how he performs, etc. If they ultimately say "no never" (and the longer we can forestall that the better), then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates, ask them for recommendations, evaluate the recommendations, interview their candidates, and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in "good faith," of course.

This isn't anything any politician wouldn't try to do to game the system. Don't kid yourself. The Dems are exchanging emails which are precisely the equivalent of some of these emails and they would look just as ugly. Politics ain't a pretty game.

Why can't the world be black and white as it is for Bush?

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US Attorney purge

Just had to weigh in on this. My personal life is still sixes and sevens, but this is something a blogger can't ignore.

Something has been bothering me about this whole US Attorney purge. Considering the number of US attorneys in the US, and only 8 were purged, how many others were willing to play ball?

Here’s where I’m coming from. Recognize I’m projecting my own position onto the attorneys in question. I’ve had choices to risk my career or “go along”.

In my corporate life I’ve often been pressured to “rethink” my analysis and conclusions on this or that subject. After initially protesting this as something akin to bullshit (a word I did use), I agreed. The reason I acquiesced is I knew full well I was more intelligent than the idiot who wanted a cooked report.

So, I consented to revisit my assumptions, analysis and conclusions and report back. Then I would choose the middle ground which didn’t include lies nor the final results requested (demanded?), but fell slightly short of complete honesty. However the resulting reports, which the idiots couldn’t really comprehend, came very close to the original report without being too blatant. Often my managers would receive extreme heat from their superiors who also didn’t want to hear the whole truth. Perhaps that’s why I didn’t get promoted as did the toadies.

Don’t get me wrong, I worked for some managers who didn’t want to hear what I had to say, but decided I was right and changed their positions. It happens. Not often, but it does. Everyone has a strong sense of self-preservation.

So this isn’t a condemnation of even a large number of the non-purged attorneys. Its quite possible they proceeded with investigations they knew were a waste of time at least and probably totally bogus. I’m no attorney, but am quite certain its possible to investigate Dem voter fraud for example with, shall we say, less than full enthusiasm, but it keeps the wolves from the door. I’m hoping this is the case.

My thinking is US attorneys are ambitious and seek power, authority and respect as do many of us, but those things come from intelligent judicial decisions and not from the stroking they get from the administration in power. They have a sense of morality and ethics and aren’t about to prostitute themselves just to hold onto their positions. This is a belief I honestly hope is true.