Bloggers call for the attorney general’s head, seethe at news that Halliburton’s relocating to Dubai, and ponder why married couples want separate bedrooms.
Gone-zales? In the wake of the politically tinged dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys, a New York Times editorial detailed the damage Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has done to the Constitution before directly calling for his dismissal. “He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency,” the Times wrote. Also on Sunday, Sen. Chuck Schumer faulted Gonzales for putting politics above the law and asked the AG to resign.
“It usually takes a couple of months for the outrage to catch up with the facts, but it looks like things are moving rapidly towards an implosion at the Justice Department,” observes self-described “moderate-to-liberal” Bobby Cramer at Bark Bark Woof Woof. “It’s one thing to be a lackey in the Cabinet and hold a post that doesn’t have and impact on the everyday lives of the citizens, but it’s quite another to be a toady and be the top law enforcement officer in the country.”
Aghast at this latest Justice Department scandal, Steve Benen at the liberal Carpetbagger Report finds Gonzales to be worse than his infamous predecessor: “Gonzales’ decisions and conduct have managed to do the impossible — make John Ashcroft’s tenure at the Justice Department look good by comparison.”
Attorney Archer at Lawyer World Land believes attorneys general are inclined to be bad. “Bobby Kennedy, John Mitchell, Janet Reno, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales are as sorry a lineup of partisan hacks as ever attained high office, and so clumsy one and all that they barely escaped jail, except for Mitchell, who drew two to eight and served 19 months. Appointment to the Office of Attorney General ought to come with an automatic jail term of one year, because whatever anyone does in that job is bound to stink,” he writes.
Considering Gonzales to be a more innocuous AG than his predecessor, Jeralyn at TalkLeft tells Democrats to focus their efforts elsewhere. “I think rather than having Gonzales step down now, we should concentrate on electing a Democrat as President in 2008, so that we hopefully can get a less ideological Attorney General in 2009,” she writes.
Conservative reaction to calls for Gonzales’ dismissal was largely muted. At Captain’s Quarters,conservative Ed Morrissey suggests a course of action for the AG: “Gonzales needs to answer for the dismissals of the prosecutors and the manner in which they were handled. … It’s not illegal to replace federal prosecutors for political reasons, but it’s foolish to do so as baldly as Gonzales appears to have done – especially when the White House has to work with a Congress newly captured by an opposition party eager to launch investigations as Helen launched ships from Greece.”
Read more about calls for Gonzales’ resignation.
Hello, Dubai! Halliburton is trading the Gulf of Mexico for the Persian Gulf, relocating its corporate headquarters from Houston to Dubai. A base in the United Arab Emirates will help the oil-field-services giant increase its presence in the oil-endowed Eastern Hemisphere, according to CEO David Lesar, who announced the move in Bahrain Sunday.
“We’ve all been wondering where Cheney would seek exile, and today the answer was delivered: Dubai,” snickers D.C.-based gossip monger Wonkette.
Reading the tea leaves, Aarhead at Fabulous Somebody sees a positive sign in this move. “The good news is that since corporate interests have much more power and say than any politico in Washington, I take this as a sign that we’ll be pulling out of Iraq soon. Halliburton has probably maximized its return to its investors on war profiteering and the risk premium on future returns has dipped.”
Progressive Chris Kromm at Facing South, a blog of the progressive Institute for Southern Studies, is unfazed. “Halliburton has always shown more fealty to its bottom line than the national interest,” he writes. “But the issues the move raises – about the pitfalls of a privatized military, the loyalty of companies to nations in a globalized economy – are much more profound.”
Read more about Halliburton’s move to Dubai.
Sleep better alone: Married Americans who can afford it increasingly want to sleep alone and are building dual master bedrooms to accomplish this goal, according to the New York Times. Couples cite snoring or keeping different schedules among the reasons for needing separate space.
The affordable-housing developer at True Ancestor laments this trend, though he admits he and his wife usually end up in separate rooms. “I don’t think our marriage would survive separate master bedrooms. There’s something depressingly solitary and self-indulgent about the prospect,” he writes. “We like to curl up together at the end of the day, talk, decompress and sink into sleep together. Plus, I keep her warm – my naturally high internal thermostat being one of my principal gifts to the marriage.”
“I love this trend and think people shouldn’t be embarrassed by their personal, physical sleep needs. They should perhaps be embarrassed by leaving a larger environmental footprint, but the house doesn’t really need to be bigger. The husband can be tucked away in a rather tiny room. A snug fit is better for a man,” law prof Ann Althouse writes, before proffering another suggestion. “As for sex, why not a third room? The sex room. (The architects will figure it out.) Or even a third apartment. Get a cheap, squalid one in a bad part of town so it will be like having an affair.”
Read more about sleeping in separate beds.
