JOHN ROBERTS: Congressman Sensenbrenner, let me ask you first of all, what's your reaction to this contempt citation?REP. JAMES SENSENBRENNER: I think it's an overreach. I don't think Congress should make the move to throw the president's chief of staff and former counsel in jail over a personnel matter. Everyone says the president has the absolute right to fire U.S. attorneys.
LOU DOBBS: The White House today immediately striking back at Democrats. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino accused the Democrats of creating what she called grand conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact. Perino said Democrats are overreaching with their concept of congressional oversight.
ABC's This Week, March 18, 2007:
SEN. JOHN CORNYN: George, you know, it's amazing to me. This is what I'm talking about when I say a legitimate investigation can be overreached - can overreach and the idea - I mean Democrats think Karl Rove is lurking behind every bush in Washington.
After months of "overreaching," Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales -- the key figures in the Prosecutor Purge scandal, and perhaps the two aides with the deepest loyalty to Dubya -- have offered back-to-back resignations.
"Everyone says" firing prosecutors for political reasons is no big deal, and there was no evidence of wrongdoing.
Yet the growing mountain of evidence was a big enough deal to run these uber-hacks out of town.
Is this success? Are we done here? Hell no.
First and foremost, we still don't know the full story how prosecutors were put on the purge list -- to what extent were congresspeople and the president involved.
Dems are saying the investigations will continue. Good.
Beyond nailing all the individuals involved, there's a larger story to tell.
That this is not merely about unethical individuals. This is about how conservatives govern.
By placing loyalty over expertise, by running "everything ... by the political arm," by empowering political hacks to run roughshod over career civil servants beholden to facts and the law.
No matter who replaces Gonzales, this bankrupt conservative philosophy of governing will remain so long as Dubya is in office.
Our job is to make clear what's at stake, so the voters will know what visions of government they can to choose.
The conservative kind that has already run our government into the ground.
Or the liberal kind that directs our government to respond to the people's will.
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