Pirate's Cove

By now, most people have heard about Monica Goodling

An aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will invoke her constitutional right to refuse to testify before a Senate panel investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, her lawyer told the committee.

Monica Goodling, who helped coordinate the dismissals as the attorney general's White House liaison, will invoke her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer said in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee. She will refuse to be interviewed by committee lawyers and decline an invitation to testify at a public hearing, said attorney John M. Dowd, citing the "legally perilous'' environment of congressional probes.

So, what do the DUmmies think?

• watch the squealing piglets on Faux and elsewhere start defending her constitutional rights, and insulting anyone who DARES even think about the ramifications of that decision and reasons behind it (God forbid someone defends their Rights. How evil!)
• so immunize her then and she then has no claim to the 5th amendment (let's play games to circumvent the Constitution)
• Look how that worked out when Ollie North invoked the 5th! Instead, the Dem talking point should be that since this aide is invoking the 5th, SHE believes that a crime HAS been committed, and that she doesn't want to implicate herself.

  Confirmation that something illegal happened here! Alert the media!! (Framers are rolling in their graves)

• I'm sending that talking point to my list she sure doesn't want to implicate herself, look what just happened to Scooter … she could be next ("I'm dumb, tell me what to think")
• Fine. He doesn't want to incriminate himself. That says something doesn't it? So let Congress give him immunity and then slap his merry ass on the grill until his boss is well done. (games and insinuation. Who's trashing the Constitution?)
• Yes, it's huge; it means she has something incriminating to say. If I'm not mistaken, pleading the Fifth gives rise to a permissible inference of guilt in any resulting legal proceedings against her (i.e., the jury is allowed to hold that against her).

  Providing her immunity sounds like a plan to me. As much as I would hate to see any of those idiots receive a get out of jail free card, at least it would reverse the outrageous recurring theme we've seen in scandals involving this administration, where it's the little guys that always get the brunt of the blame, while the guys actually calling the shots continue to sit pretty in the WH. (see previous comment)

• Cool! that means they know it was illegal (back to rolling in the grave)
• Send her to Guantanamo for committing acts of aggression against the U.S. Constitution. She's just as much an enemy combatant as any of the current concentration camp inmates. (bingo, you just new someone had to compare her, a Republican, to the Taliban and Al Qaeda folks captured in Afghanistan)
• How about we use some water boarding? That will make them talk. (now torture for an American citizen)
• The phrase out of every Dem's mouth from now until Gonzo resigns or is indicted should be "WHAT ARE THEY HIDING????" Alternate meme: "If Repukes don't have anything to hide, then why are they afraid to testify????" (which plays off the RW's meme about warrantless wiretapping.) (was that the sound of the Constitution tearing I just heard?)
• That is to say, she is still presumed innocent until proven guilty, but her failure to testify, combined with other evidence, can be used as evidence to establish her guilt. A jury would be allowed to hold her refusal to testify to support an inference of guilt. (Liberal World logic. Weird)

And it goes on and on and on, same old moonbattery. Granted, a few DUer's actually understand the reality of ths situation, and stood upon Constitutionally based ground here in the real world, but, the real patients vastly outnumber the pretenders avoiding real jail time.

But, these comments do not represent the Left, right? Why not visit the HuffPost, which features, as of 8:08pm, 14 pages of this insanity. Or the Daily Kos? America Blog? Memeorandum lists many Liberal blogs with the story, most of which take the tact that something illegal must have been done for her to take the 5th.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Now, there is an interesting discussion over at The Volokh Conspiracy about this who issue, which I would recommend reading.

I am not a lawyer, simply a citizen who has had the classes (political science major) and can read the Constitution and the documents about it, but I look at it this way: the Democrats are treating this as a criminal matter, not just a political one. They want people under oath and on the record, searching for any little tidbit that they can use to nail a Republican, preferably leading up to Rove and George "Still The President" Bush. Whether someone did something wrong or not, they have the Right to refuse to provide any information that may incriminate themselves in any shape or form. Yes, legal precedents mean something, but the words highlighted above are the ultimate deciders.

Captain Ed has quite a bit more.

And, BTW, Oliver, can you please change back to your old banner? It was much better. Brighter and with the American flag. Oh, and no, it doesn't imply a crime.

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