Apples, Oranges and Congressional Oversight

When Tony Fratto calls the impending Senate no-confidence vote on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales a "political stunt," I read it as code for "We don't know what to say about this and wish it would just go away." The White House would frame this as little more than another symptom of an overzealous Congress run amok with petty inquisitors staging witch hunts in the name of oversight, and would caution Congress, I'm sure, to mind they don't "overreach" and alienate the American public they've pledged to serve.

This is all part of the only strategy left to the White House, that of painting its most earnest political opponents as sore losers yet over the 2000 and 2004 elections (which, credit where credit is due, is no doubt true) while going on to repeat, loudly and often, that the American public is tired of congressional hearings which only serve to advance partisan politics and do nothing to actually improve the governance of the nation. The latter has been a Bush camp line from day one. Doesn't matter if we're talking about apples; call them oranges enough times and nobody will doubt that the items in question are indeed oranges, unless the dissenters can live with being called unpatriotic.

Here's the thing, though. Congressional oversight has revealed that, lo and behold, plenty of these so-called oranges we've had shoved at us repeatedly by the Bush administration (links between al Qaeda and Iraq, WMD, "Mission Accomplished," warrantless wiretapping, Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch, and the US Attorney purge, to name a few) are turning out to be apples after all. So what do you do if you're trying to manage the fallout and spin the discoveries in your favor? Sell some more oranges. Tell the American people that the American people are tired of oversight run amok, that Henry Waxman, Patrick Leahy, Charles Schumer and more are simply milking this cow for all the political juice they can get, and that it's going to come back to bite them.

This strategy is no longer working, but the Bush White House cannot afford to abandon it. There are too many secrets, too many fabulous violations of constitutional precedent, for the Bush camp to open up now. The best they can do is hope to "gum this to death," as Kyle Sampson once suggested regarding the US attorney scandal, and run out the clock on the Bush presidency.

Unfortunately for the Bush camp, the truth just keeps slipping out. This is why Congress must continue to advance an agenda of accountability, and do so thoughtfully, strategically and carefully. There are two things to look for as the Senate votes on the Gonzales issue. The first is whether they get a two-thirds vote of no confidence, because that would lay the groundwork to impeach the AG. The second is to see which senators vote in favor of Gonzales and the White House line, because this issue is potentially just as damning to the GOP as the issue of impeachment. If I read the political scene correctly, Senate Dems are going to make sure to get their Republican counterparts on the record as many times as possible on as many difficult issues that arise between now and the 2008 congressional election. It will be difficult for any senator, no matter how entrenched, to weather the flurry of advertising that goes: "Senator Hatch voted in confidence of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales . . . six months before Gonzales was impeached and removed from office." Or something like that. (I'm not saying Senator Hatch is vulnerable, but you never know.)

The White House knows that a vote of no-confidence could lead to an impeachment of Gonzales, and this could open up any number of previously tightly sealed doors into the President's--and perhaps more importantly the Vice President's--closely guarded inner circle. That's why spokespeople like Fratto, like Tony Snow and Dana Perino, will repeat again and again and again and again that these are just the same old tired Democratic machinations that have jammed the country up and slowed the government down for the past forty years and shouldn't be taken with a grain of salt.

Watch, though. I don't think Americans are buying White House oranges anymore.

UPDATE: Emptywheel at Firedoglake offers a rundown on Senate Republicans and the no-confidence vote.