Unitary Execution

When people describe Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as a "loyal Bushie", they are essentially referring to his support for the wacko 'theory' of the unitary executive. For example:

As long as Gonzales remains front and center in the furor over last year's mass firing of U.S. attorneys -- as long as his goofy stonewalling continues to distract attention from all the elements of the purge that point so incriminatingly toward the White House -- he simply enhances his position as the ultimate "loyal Bushie."

The 'theory' basically holds that the President is an elected autocrat who doesn't need one or even two coequal branches of government in order to preside. It is the unifying principle behind basically every disgusting thing the Bush Administration has done. To wit,

Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez sent a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter “clarifying” testimony he gave on February 6. In what amounted to a “By the way, I kind of perjured myself before you,” Gonzales said that when he said the “Terrorist Surveillance Program” was “all that [President Bush] has authorized” in the area of warrantless surveillance, “I was confining my remarks to the Terrorist Surveillance Program as described by the President.” This tautological sleight-of-hand can lead one only to conclude that there are other “programs” of surveillance. But don’t ask what they might be.

Gonzales also noted that when he said—three times—that the Justice Department had not conducted any analysis of whether purely domestic wiretapping without a warrant might be legal, he might have left the “misimpression” that the Justice Department had not conducted any analysis of whether purely domestic wiretapping without a warrant might be legal. Oops.

The response from the Judiciary Committee, of course, was a great big pile of nothing. By now such admissions have become so routine, they fail to bring attention beyond a story buried deep in the back pages of The Washington Post. After all, this is the administration that leaked the identity of a CIA operative in order to discredit a political opponent. (Remember Bush’s promise to fire anyone involved?) This is the president that claims “we don’t torture,” then fights to retain his prerogative to torture. When forced by political fallout to sign a law outlawing said torture, he issues a “signing statement” making clear his intention to ignore the law when he feels like it. Potential appointees to scientific panels are asked whether they voted for President Bush. Regulations on environmental and occupational safety that the administration finds distasteful lie fallow and unenforced. Treaties signed by the United States are derided as “quaint,” then cast aside. When the Government Accountability Office issues a ruling that the administration’s use of phony “video news releases” purporting to be real news constitutes “covert propaganda” and is therefore illegal, the White House simply ignores them and continues the propaganda campaign.

Gonzales' testimony before the Senate last week on the US Attorney scandal was another perfect example of the unitary executive in execution. The Justice Department is of course a cabinet department, and cabinet departments are part of the executive branch, which make them virtually indistinguishable from the (Bush) White House. For example, since Clinton left office, the number of White House officials who are allowed to comment on ongoing DoJ investigations has increased by over 10,000%!

Bush issued some effusive praise yesterday and over the weekend for the outstanding (but plainly awful) performance Gonzales gave last week. I believe it comes back to two explanations, the first of which is the heavy involvement of the White House, and especially Karl Rove, in the US Attorney firings.

One White House adviser (who asked not to be ID'ed talking about sensitive issues) said the support reflected Bush's own view that a Gonzales resignation would embolden the Dems to go after other targets—like Karl Rove. "This is about Bush saying, 'Screw you'," said the adviser, conceding that a Gonzales resignation might still be inevitable.

The other reason, though, is this business with the unitary executive. If the executive branch really is allowed to govern without the other branches of government (bear with me here), then testifying before Congress is a sort of optional theatricality at best.

For anyone who regularly reads the progressive blogs, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick was a little late to the party, but her article on Friday was still right on (and still lightyears ahead of the media establishment):

Assuming the president watched so much as 10 minutes of his attorney general being poleaxed by even rudimentary questions from the Senate judiciary committee, it strains credulity to believe that Gonzales still has Bush's "full confidence."
...
For six impressive hours, the attorney general embodied the core principles that he is not beholden to Congress, that the Senate has no authority over him, and that he was only there as a favor to them in their funny little fact-finding mission.
...
This record reflects either a Harvard-trained lawyer—and former state Supreme Court judge—with absolutely no command of the facts or the law, or it reveals a proponent of the unitary executive theory with absolutely nothing to prove. Gonzales' failure to even mount a defense; his posture of barely tolerating congressional inquiries; his refusal to concede that he owed the Senate any explanation or any evidence; his refusal to even accept that he bore some burden of proof—all of it tots up to a masterful display of the perfect contempt felt by the Bush executive branch for this Congress and its pretensions of oversight. In the plainest sense, Gonzales elevated the Bush legal doctrine of "Because I said so" into a public spectacle.

This is yet another reminder of why fighting Bush tooth and nail is so important. This battle isn't just about whether some bad policies get enacted and whether some bad people get positions in government. This isn't just about what happens in Iraq or what happens to the economy. This is about government itself, about our way of life and our very identity as Americans. The Administration is attacking liberalism itself, and it is absolutely imperative that Bush be stopped if we have any intention of continuing to live in a democracy.