me: i dunno.

* jane:

"To say I do not understand WTF is going on between the Justice Department, the OVP, the White House and Congressional Republicans in the William Jefferson affair would be an understatement. I doubt right now if many can claim to know what this weird dance is all about.

Abu Gonzales has never found a position so base he could not justify at Dubya’s request — from torture to illegal wiretapping to threatening journalists and rubber stamping all manner of unlimited executive overreach — but he’s finally drawing a line in the sand over returning documents seized in a bribery scandal?

Dennis Hastert has gleefully played marionette to perhaps the biggest crook in the House, Tom DeLay, and has happily facilitated the White House’s efforts to hack off limbs of Congressional authority, but now he’s ready to force a constitutional crisis defending a member of the Black Congressional Caucus?

Dick Cheney, chief pimp for the theory of the Unitary Executive, is telling the White House to back off? That’s like Simon Cowell walking on to the set of American Idol and ordering everyone to stop being so mean."

soto:

"I doubt that Cheney, for his part, really raised an objection to the raid on constitutional grounds and any newfound concern for a separation of powers, two things that have been an alien concept to him and his staff for five years now. Cheney may have felt the way he did because 1) he correctly calculated that the raid would cost Bush whatever remaining support he had inside his own caucus for his agenda in an election year; 2) he doesn’t want Republicans investigated at all and wants Justice to Deep Six the Abramoff and Cunningham inquiries because of where they will lead; and 3) he saw a chance to stick it to Rove and Abu in the ongoing internal White House pissing contest. Gonzales, for his part, wanted to signal back to Cheney that Bush would have to choose between them and saw a chance to stick it back in Shooter’s face that in this battle, Bush will side with Abu and against Cheney. Sure, there will be some face-saving “compromise” between Frist, Hastert, and Gonzales here, but Bush will continue on with the Jefferson prosecution as he should. It will strain the relationship a little more between the GOP caucuses on Capitol Hill, who are now for the first time really afraid of this administration’s excessive power grab, and a White House that has internal divisions and a degree of dysfunction hidden to all of us. And it will mean that scores of GOP representatives and senators on the hill are now seeing that they reap what they sow, and that Justice will be coming after them now also."

me: i dunno.