Tomorrow, the Senate will introduce a no confidence resolution on the management and credibility of embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Rarely used throughout American history, the resolution, if passed, would be a “historical black mark” on Gonzales and the Bush administration.
On Fox News Sunday today, White House spokesperson Tony Snow said that if the no confidence vote is passed — even with bipartisan support — it will have “no effect” on President Bush’s confidence in Gonzales. Snow claimed “nobody [has] found anything untoward in terms of what happened” in the attorney scandal. He added, “there’s an attempt to pull this [resolution] like a piece of taffy, seeing if there’s any political advantage in it.” Watch it:
[flv http://video.thinkprogress.org/2007/06/snownoconf.320.240.flv]
The only people twisting the resolution “like a piece of taffy” are those conservatives trying to provide political cover for Gonzales’ incompetent management at the Justice Department.
Roll Call reported last week that Senate conservatives are trying to “thwart” the resolution using parliamentary procedures:
Republicans are likely to tie up the Senate floor with all kinds of procedural mischief and introduce any number of amendments, including perhaps one on whether the Iraq War is actually “lost” as Reid has suggested.
One example: Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who has previously called for Gonzales to resign but refuses to support the no confidence vote, will introduce an unrelated pet amendment, “expressing ‘no confidence’ in Congress’ ability to cut wasteful spending or balance the budget.”
Transcript:
WALLACE: By the way, real quickly, on the vote of no confidence on Gonzales, if you get a number of Republicans joining in a vote of no confidence, will that shake the President’s determination to keep Gonzales on the job? >>
SNOW: Not a bit. Purely symbolic vote.
WALLACE: And no effect on the President.
SNOW: No. what you’ve got here is a senate that’s had a great deal of difficulty delivering on any of its promises. Furthermore, it is perfectly obvious that the President has the right to hire and fire people who serve at his pleasure. Nobody found anything untoward in terms of what happened. Therefore, as a consequence, there’s an attempt to pull this thing like a piece of taffy, seeing if there’s any political advantage in it. There’s not. So what we’ll end up having is people burning off a day expressing their opinions and then we’ll have an opportunity to move on.