One Flunky Testifies, While Another Refuses

In my previous entry I reported a Reuters news story revealing that Monica Goodling, one of Alberto Gonzalez's flunkies in the Injustice Department, refuses to testify in front of Congress -- choosing to exercise her Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination. This of course gives the distinct impression that Goodling is afraid she will place herself in danger of being caught committing perjury, or that she would be exposed as having committed some other crime(s) under Gonzalez's orders -- thereby implicating not only herself but her boss.

Now, it appears that Gonzalez's former chief of staff is testifying before Congress about the firing of eight U.S. prosecutors for purely political reasons (they refused to politicize prosecutions at the behest of the White House and Republican officials). Undoubtedly Kyle Sampson is busy lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee about how and why the firings took place.

But this raises a question in my mind: why, if Gonzalez's former chief of staff has the balls to risk perjury charges for lying to the Senate Judiciary Committee, doesn't Goodling? What does she have to lose by testifying under oath? Her job? Probably; but it isn't as if members of the Bush regime haven't had to resign in disgrace before, following very nasty candals. And only one, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has actually been convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. With that track record, Goodling really only faces the prospect of losing her job and having to go into the private sector to wait until the next Republican regime comes to power so she can get it back.

There is only one logical explanation: Goodling won't testify because she's trying to hide her role in the attorney firings, and that of her boss. This refusal to testify may only be delaying the inevitable, however. Democrats are calling for Gonzalez to step down, and even a growing number of Republicans are publicly questioning his continued viability as Attorney General. In the end, it's all about protecting George W. Bush from impeachment. And if Gonzalez has to go, like long-time ally Donald Rumsfeld before him, then so be it. Rumsfeld -- who resigned in disgrace as Secretary of War right after the 2006 midterm elections -- found out the hard way that sooner or later, when it comes to protecting the Shrub and his gargoyle, anyone can be sacrificed on the political alter.

Kyle Sampson is lying to Congress as I type this. He'll be caught lying, of course, as all liars eventually are. And he will ultimately make Monica Goodling's refusal to testify seem even more suspicious, thus adding to the exposure of this regime as one that flails about in desperation trying to salvage something it never had -- and that something is credibility. In that same desperate flailing in 2003, a covert CIA operative's career was destroyed and her colleagues' and contacts' lives jeopardized, her work on WMD counterproliferation and America's security compromised. The selfishness of the Bush regime is such that it will sacrifice anyone and anything, including national security, to protect the top dogs. Goodling might do well to consider that when she receives the subpoena, and ponder whether she would serve herself and her country better by telling the truth. After all, it's not as if she isn't expendible to the White House. And if she doubts that, she can ask Rumsfeld.