My thoughts of Gonzo's testimony with Congress

"The best job goes to the person who can get it done without passing the buck or coming back with excuses"--Napoleon Hill

This quote comes to mind from Napoleon Hill as I liveblogged and saw videos of Gonzo's testimony with Congress today. I posted the DOJ organizational chart to prove a point regarding Gonzo's testimony. Basically, Gonzales has basically stayed on the "I can't recall" crusade with Congress as Congress pressed hard questions to Gonzo. But, a majoity of Congress are in agreement that the USA firings are another coverup by Gonzo and the Bush Administration. And all roads lead to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. There is not a shred of doubt in many of the minds of Congress that Gonzo needs to go and the entire Bush Administration has given the entire Department of Justice and the judicial system a huge black eye, dark cloud, a human stain, for the next President of the United States in 2008 to cleanup and rebuild back integrity.

Jason Leopold provided the bottom line statement from Rep. John Conyers before he ended the hearings: Conyers said. "The bread crumbs ... seem to be leading to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue."

But, this hearing exposed a lot of Gonzo's leadership role function as Attorney General and his leadership under the Department of Justice. Gonzo has said time and time again that he "accepts" responsibility. That might sounds quite ducky to him. What I learned about leadership is this: Anyone can be given a title as leader. And that is a title from a job, organization, or whatever. But, leadership is not given. It is earned. And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales never earned the leadership role in the Department of Justice. Gonzo never did when he first was given the job and he still hasn't earned it from this Congressional hearing today. And using excuses, given authorities, and passing the buck to aides that are favorites instead of using the chain of command as indicating from the DOJ organizational chart will not change the fact that Gonzo is incompetent, he and the White were involved in this USA firing cover-up, and Gonzo needs to be removed from his job.

Scott M. Galindez asks the same questions that we all are asking: "Does Alberto Gonzales know what anyone is doing at the Justice Department? Does he ask his staff any questions? Who is running the Justice Department?"

Finally, I notice that the media has once again fell asleep at the switch on Rep. Wexler's question to Gonzo regarding who was responsible for carrying out the firings of the USAs. That is an excellent question by Wexler. Gonzo's response is important to demostrate Gonzo's leadership role in the AG office. From Gonzo's response it clearly tell you that he didn't properly use the chain of command at all. I wanted to ask Gonzo: where was his DAG McNulty in decision making process of firing the USAs. Here is excerpt from Jason Leopold:

Congressman Robert Wexler (D-Florida) questioned Gonzales about how David Iglesias, the former US attorney for New Mexico, appeared on the list of fired prosecutors. Gonzales said he accepted responsibility for carrying out the firing, but Wexler said he did not care about Gonzales's accepting responsibility for the dismissals because he was more concerned with who was responsible for selecting Iglesias for termination. Gonzales told Wexler that Iglesias's name "was forwarded to me." Gonzales's former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson "was in charge of coordinating this effort," Gonzales said. "I have not spoken to Mr. Sampson about this." Wexler responded angrily to what he perceived as Gonzales withholding information from the committee, saying "you won't tell the American people who put Mr. Iglesias on the list to be fired. It's a national secret. You know who put him on the list, but you won't tell us."

Let's compare what Gonzo's response to Wexler of his decision making process of firing an USA versus former DAG James Comey's testimony last week to Congress:

Comey: I remember two occasions on which USAs were asked to resign. One was when Ashcroft was AG. One was Gonzales was AG. I got the Attorney General's approval to have my senior staff member place a call and suggest that he resign. I talked to my staff, I had Margolis make a call, that it was time to leave, given the conduct that was discovered, it was not appropriate. One resigned, the other insisted on being fired by the President, so the President fired him by letter. In both the cases where I was involved with terminating a USA, the two were not close calls. As soon as you read about it, you said, this guy has got to go. We explained it to the person, Mr. Margolis explained it to them.