Bush: Gonzales Is My Man + Thought Crimes
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in General Politics, Law, Technology
The President’s credibility continues to shrink as he defends Gonzales even more by attacking Democrats.
President Bush said yesterday that Democrats in Congress are engaging in “pure political theater” by preparing resolutions of no confidence in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, and he repeated his support for his embattled aide and longtime friend.Bush told reporters at his ranch near Crawford, Tex., that the attorney general “has done nothing wrong” in the dismissals of nine U.S. attorneys last year.
“I stand by Al Gonzales, and I would hope that people would be more sober in how they address these important issues,” Bush said. “And they ought to get the job done of passing legislation, as opposed to figuring out how to be actors on the political theater stage.”
Well, then a lot of GOPers are part of this theater too, like Arlen Specter, Norm Coleman, Chuck Hagel, etc. This has become a bi-parisan issue, and the GOP wants Gonzales out quickly. He’s a joke and he’s hurting Republican credibility.
Meanwhile…
…Since we’ve been talking about supposed “thought crimes” around the hate crimes legislation, let’s focus on a rule concerning intellectual property which Gonzales is proposing. Why? Well, it actually DOES sound like a thought crime.
* Criminalize “attempting” to infringe copyright. Federal law currently punishes not-for-profit copyright infringement with between 1 and 10 years in prison, but there has to be actual infringement that takes place. The IPPA would eliminate that requirement. (The Justice Department’s summary of the legislation says: “It is a general tenet of the criminal law that those who attempt to commit a crime but do not complete it are as morally culpable as those who succeed in doing so.”)
Nice.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 and is filed under General Politics, Law, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
May 23rd, 2007 at 2:14 am
Since Gonzo can not create a thought without his creeator “Bush” giving it to him he will never be accused of thinking of a crime on his own.
i don’t know which is worse. An AG that can not think on his own or taking his lead form a President who can’t think on his own.
May 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 am
ok that second part about the attempting thing… we already have laws in regards to “attempted crimes”.
I think it’s a stupid and insane idea to prosecute for “attempted copyright” but I don’t think it’s stupid to prosecute for attempted murder.
What are they going to do… lock me up for downloading a website with the intent of using it as inspiration in a design… after all, inspiration COULD be extrapolated to “attempted copyright” if you look at it long enough.
May 23rd, 2007 at 1:41 pm
That’s the reality James. I just thought it was interesting to point out something that is actually a thought crime, because we don’t even know if a crime has been committed yet. At least with a hate crime, an actually event has taken place and it can be determined from the evidence surrounding it that the intent was hateful and malicious…which I believe is far from being a thought crime.