Gone-zales

Looks like AG Alberto Gonzales is in trouble, and maybe even from the GOP. Before getting to the meat of this post (USA PATRIOT and the Potted Plants), I'm a bit confused by AG Gonzales' statements in his press brief on March 13th. In one part he says,

I believe in accountability. Like every CEO of every major organization, I am responsible for what happens at the Department of Justice. I acknowledge that mistakes were made here. I accept that responsibility and my pledge to the American people is to find out what went wrong here, to assess accountability, and to make improvements so that the mistakes in this instance do not occur again in the future.

But at the end he says,

I stand by the decision. Again, all political appointees can be removed by the President of the United States for any reason. I stand by the decision and I think it was the right decision. Thank you very much.

I'm just confused. If mistakes were made, but the decisions were the right ones, then what were the mistakes?

He also adds,

I accept that responsibility and my pledge to the American people is to find out what went wrong here, to assess accountability, and to make improvements so that the mistakes in this instance do not occur again in the future.

Good to know that he and OJ are out looking for the real killers.

From what I can gather, the decision to fire the state AG's was a fall back from firing all of them. Why the move to fire any of them? Best guesses are that the White House was moving to take advantage of a USA PATRIOT ACT provision that allows the Pres to nominate new AG's for indefinite terms while avoiding the "Advise and Consent" clause of that pesky ol' US Constitution. The kicker is that the new power came in the USA PATRIOT IMPROVEMENT AND REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005. That's right, this is the improved version of the USA PATRIOT ACT. Yup, congress neutered itself even more in 2005. What's Potted Plant to do? Just a suggestion, but a potted plat becomes a man when it acts. Scrap the USA PATRIOT ACT, an act that clearly no one has full read, no one fully understands, and an act that clearly has provisions in it that have nothing to do with terrorism, and strip congress of its constitutional authority. Pass a series of bills, succinctly written with well defined purposes.

As always, when you give someone lots of power, you can't be surprised when they use it. Checks and Balances is the cornerstone of our system of Government. The way it's been destroyed is not only criminal, I think its treasonous.