Saturday, August 29, 2009
Facing Off
“His face bespoke his soul”
Voltaire
French Philosopher and Writer
1694-1778
“A man's face is his autobiography. A woman's face
is her work of fiction.” *
Oscar Wilde
Irish Poet, Novelist, Dramatist and Critic
1854-1900
Facebook has become a rallying place for those opposing the career of Alberto Gonzales, who will teach his first class as a visiting professor at Texas Tech on August 31st. Some of the groups originate from Texas Tech, like the 150 member "Alberto Gonzales Doesn't Belong at Texas Tech" started by "TT" alum Jason Rhodes.
Another similar group is the one started by Texas Tech alum David Ring , who is a former student of Professor Walter Schaller, the professor who originated the petition against the hiring of Gonzales. The petition, signed by some 88 professors at Texas Tech, as of last check, is in protest to his visiting professorship, at the salary of $100,000 for one year. The unusually lucrative visiting professorship for Gonzales, who has never taught a college class before in his life and who will be teaching a single class of 15 undergraduate students, could have paid for two far more highly qualified visiting professors with actual teaching experience and academic credentials.
Others who object to Gonzales and are organizing through face book are more generic in their opposition. Groups like the 56 member "Alberto Gonzales should spend the rest of his worthless life in prison".
Groups address not only disapproval of Gonzales himself, but of those individuals who served as his staff, joining him in participating in what many view to be unethical, and possibly illegal conduct, like the groups which seek to have Gonzales right-hand man Ted Ullyot fired from his position on the legal staff of Facebook, "We demand that Facebook fire Alberto Gonzales' right hand man, Ted Ullyot" and the 14 member "Justice Starts Here, Tell Facebook to fire Alberto Gonzales Lap Dog".
As specific as the antipathy is to Ted Ullyot, it is sparklingly clear that the objection is even greater to the actions of Alberto Gonzales. Then there is the 3,425 member group "Demand that Facebook General Counsel Ullyot resign'" and the group "Free Facebook: No Alberto Gonzales, No Ted Ullyot as General Counsel".
There are even more groups on Facebook which object to Gonzales not only individually, or to the unusually cushy teaching position given to him by his close political friend Chancellor Kent Hance. These groups are a bit more broadly based in their opposition to Gonzales, and are even sometimes a bit scurrilous. With titles like (I ask the readers pardon) the 12 member "Alberto Gonzales Can Suck my Dick" and the 3 member "Alberto Gonzales Is A Demented Child Rapist", these myriad groups more generally are in opposition to ALL of the Bush administration alums, and therefore prominently include opposition to Gonzales.
It remains to be seen in the coming weeks, especially beginning with Gonzales' first day of class at TT at the end of the month, how effective these Facebook organized movement will be at influencing Gonzales future career at Texas Tech. Unconfirmed rumors abound that Chancellor Hance has hopes of extending the term of Gonzales term as a professor, after the speculation that there was strong faculty opposition against hiring him to teach within the law school, and possibly a failure as well to see him installed as Dean. The scope of the Facebook groups alone in opposition to him is extensive. If it will also be effective in countering the clout of Chancellor Hance on Gonzales’s behalf remains to be seen - but it should be fun to watch.
* I have always enjoyed this quotation, and couldn't resist using it here, although perhaps less apt than other quotations.
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Its difficult to realize, but the level of patronage being exhibited to Alberto Gonzales is really quite shocking. One also has to wonder if his hiring on a visiting professor's track isn't a way of pay-off, to keep him from including even more damaging things in any book which he eventually publishes, that would serve to further indict the Bush administration.
ReplyDeleteAs time marches forward, however, I think Mr. Gonzales' involvement in the Bush administrations gross mismanagement of the war and even worse, his utterly incompetent administration of the Justice Department will catch up with him, as he finds himself more and more unemployable and perhaps standing in the dock to defend himself against crimes committed during that administration.
KR says:
ReplyDelete"Can you say astroturf!!!"
I can say it, I can spell it, having researched the article, it does not reasonably seem to apply here. The participants seem pretty spontaneous.
I was surprised to learn that facebook has a news page, and that my little effort at writing made their 'news', such as it is (and it is NOT much, lol, but it was still fun).
The Anglo/American justice system has a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. However, that presumption of innocence isn't world-wide universal, and its only limited to proceedings before a tribunal. Its perfectly acceptable to say that Mr. Bush and his administration are guilty of crimes. I am not sitting on a jury, nor am I sitting on the federal bench.
ReplyDeleteWe've dealt with this before, K-Rod. Go back and read posts concerning John Yoo.
Now, as far as impeachment: There were some democrats who called for President Bush's impeachment in 2006 and shortly after. However, wiser heads prevailed. This was for a variety of reasons:
1) The evidence, while compelling, wasn't as overwhelming as it is today.
2) The evidence actually shows that Vice President Chaney is probably more culpible of war crimes than Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush is an idiot, and may have kept himself deliberately ignorant.
3) An impeachment proceeding, even when the evidence is fairly overwhelming (i.e. Bill Clinton) isn't a sure thing. When an impeachment fails, it looks bad on the party which brought it.
I think that overall, considering that Mr. Bush's effectiveness as president was basically gone after the 2006 election, impeachment was not a serious consideration, and rightly so.
BTW, KR, you didn't actually provide any information refuting that Republicans didn't reach accross the isle during the Bush years (other than pointing out NCLB - which was at best a BARELY palatable solution which the Dems understood they had to take what they could get, or they'd get nothing - sound familiar?).
ReplyDeleteCommenting about the failings you see with Rengel is hardly refuting anything as it relates to the conduct of those who refused to allow a high-ranking member to do their job.
I'll go further, James Jeffords was one of the most ardent supporters of recognizing competent conduct in teachers - he put forward a teacher for 'Teacher of the Year' from his state (VT iirc). She won. Bush PURPOSEFULLY refused Jeffords an invitation to the awards ceremony as punishment for Jeffords working with Democrats to craft comprimise legislation. Jeffords quit the party over that offront (and as well some others, but that was the proverbial straw which broke the camel's back).
These kinds of conduct were the hallmark of of Bush's administration. From bogus charges of voter fraud which were repeatedly REFUSED by REPUBLICAN Federal Prosecutors for further action (and so those prosecutors were fired under the direction of Karl Rove for NOT engaging in fraudulent/malicious prosecution and prosecutorial misconduct), to demands by the Republicans to void the fillibuster and get 'up or down votes', a demand they no longer feel is something which THEY should live up to... the 8 years of the Bush administration were an example in hubris and abuse.
Conversely, Obama DID start in the middle-ground from looking at the continuum of health care proposals, he DID attempt to get them to offer some other solution which would address a failure to cover tens of millions of people, and he was rebuffed. The Republicans have even distributed literature about how health care will be used by the Republican party to create "Obama's Waterloo" - meaning, it is their intent, no matter how important the issue (and there's hardly something more impactful than health care reform) they intended to oppose the President without restraint because they saw the opportunity for political victory.
KR, I'm interested in your rebuttal, but please, make it a rebuttal. If you feel the conduct of the Republicans was something ELSE, or you want to provide an example of how Obama held meetings WITHOUT ever including Republicans, fine, but simple scatter-gun statements of 'false, WRONG, Bzz' whatever, aren't actual arguments - and won't be published. Your comments when they have meaningful content ARE published, and I hope you understand the reasons others aren't.