bubbles.jpgThe Senate will be voting today on a “no confidence” measure with regard to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.  From the AP (via The Muck):

A majority of Democrats in the Senate are ready to cast a symbolic vote of no confidence against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today, the Associated Press reports. So far Republicans are offering meager support for the resolution and it’s unclear whether backers of the unusual maneuver will even find the 60 votes needed to close debate on the resolution and bring it up for a vote.

No one is predicting that a symbolic resolution expressing no confidence in Gonzales will survive even the test vote Monday. Most Republicans are likely to vote no, dismissing the whole exercise as a ploy to embarrass President Bush.

But would a vote even embarrass the president?

“They can have their votes of no-confidence but it’s not going to make the determination about who serves in my government,” Bush said Monday. “This process has been drug out a long time. … It’s political.”

Whether successful or not, such a vote will at least bring discussion of Gonzales to the Senate floor after five months of Congressional inquiry into the Department of Justice and the firing of at least nine US attorneys.

If you have a few spare minutes, please take some time and call your Senators and ask that they vote for the no confidence resolution.  Here are some toll free numbers to the Capitol switchboard that reader Katymine put together, so you can call your Senators for free and voice your opinion:

1 (800) 828 – 0498
1 (800) 459 – 1887
1 (800) 614 – 2803
1 (866) 340 – 9281
1 (866) 338 – 1015
1 (877) 851 – 6437

Here is why: the rank and file of the GOP are disgusted by the Gonzales leadership vacuum at the DOJ. His tenure there is an embarrassment to the party, because his mismanagement and crass cronyism tactics make the GOP look not only more incompetent but more cravenly corrupt.  And this is something they cannot afford to have the public understand in a heightened way this close to the 2008 elections.  Even Bob Novak is revolting, and his smarmy “voice of the Beltway GOP cocktail set” persona was all too clear about it this morning:

Prevailing opinion of the Republican Party’s officeholders, contributors and activists could not differ more from Bush’s posture. They regard Libby as a valuable public servant who faces serious prison time, thanks to prosecutorial abuse made possible by Bush administration decisions, with no imminent presidential pardon. They see Gonzales as an embarrassment to the party who presides over a hollow Justice Department, while presidential staffers search for Senate votes to block a no-confidence motion….In contrast, GOP insiders are enraged by Bush’s retention of Gonzales, whom they consider a political and governmental disaster. Beyond his affection for Gonzales, Bush is reported to fear a new attorney general could not be confirmed without pledging to name a special prosecutor to investigate the firing of U.S. attorneys. That suggests a lame-duck regime, preferring to stay with a crippled, leaderless Justice Department.

Aside from Novak’s self-serving parroting of the Toensing “free Scooter” line (conflict of interest much, Bob?), it is telling that the perennial GOP mouthpiece is now trying to barter the party’s way out of this unseemly failure at the DOJ by pressuring for a Libby pardon as a means of base appeasement while throwing Gonzales under the nearest bus at the first opportunity.   The GOP is trying to find any means at all of distancing itself from Bush — and this “no confidence” vote on Gonzales is just the wedge that Democrats could work to get what the nation needs, a DOJ free from the failure that is Gonzales.

GOP Senators may be ripe for the pressuring this morning.  Let’s give them a reason to vote in the interest of the public and the long-term restoration of the Department of Justice.  Make a few calls this morning, and tell your Senators to vote FOR the resolution of “no confidence” for the AG.  Your nation and its system of justice thanks you.

If you need more incentive as to why this is important, take a peek at the smarm involved in appointing party cronies with no legal experience in the field to immigration judgeships — the fact that the practices involved were against the law?  I sense more questions about to be asked, how about you?

(Photo of a bubble via anyoungkevin.)

UPDATE:  More from the NYTimes and the LATimes.

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