ONE SMALL STEP FOR MANKIND... ONE BUSH CRONY WITHDRAWS. 999 TO GO

With the BushCo virtually drowning in scandals and more and more Americans waking up to the venality of Bush's brand of extreme cronyism, the Regime decided it could not afford another public brouhaha over yet another ethically-challenged crony Bush was trying to install into a high-ranking position. Friday they withdrew the nomination of Timothy E. Flanigan for the #2 spot at the Department of Justice. Flanigan, a well-known Republican partisan and shady-dealer was a close associate of indicted GOP lobbyist and DeLay consiglieri Jack Abramoff. Abramoff, already arrested and indicted for the first of scores of corruption charges pending against him-- and a prime suspect in the Florida murder of an ex-partner of his and DeLay's-- was also in business with Flanigan, a senior lawyer for Tyco, a corrupt Bush-supporting corporation which relocated to Bermuda to avoid paying taxes.

BushCo asked Flanigan to withdraw "gracefully" rather than face another damaging hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that would have focused on the massive bribes Abramoff brokered from Tyco on behalf of Bush and DeLay and on Flanigan's role, while he was deputy White House counsel (around and around Bush's revolving door goes), in framing BushCo torture policies used illegally on detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Lying his ass off-- as usual-- BushCo Attorney General Gonzales said he was disappointed about "Flanigan's decision." (BushCo gave Flanigan a letter to turn in that said he was withdrawing because of "uncertainty concerning the timing of my confirmation," a cockamamie excuse that caused even GOP Senators to laugh aloud.) Gonzales, who was Flanigan's immediate supervisor in the White House counsel's office and also heavily and directly complicit in the anti-Geneva-Convention/torture-is-ok-policy, conceded the wide-ranging federal investigation of Abramoff played a role in the withdrawal, and suggested, with a straight face, that Flanigan is not a criminal (although Flanigan has hired Abramoff to lobby DeLay and Rove to kill legislation that would have forced it to pay taxes). Gonzales claims that the Dept of Justice is not investigating Flanigan for his criminal behavior and that he withdrew out of patriotic fervor knowing how badly the Dept needed to fill the position soon and feeling he might not get confirmed quickly.

Last time Flanigan was questioned-- then a BushCo nominee but still employed by Tyco-- he admitted to the Senate Judiciary Committee that Abramoff began lobbying on behalf of Tyco early in 2003 and bragged about his ties to indicted now-former House Majority Leader DeLay and to about-to-be-indicted Karl Rove, Bush's top aide for partisan strategies (and wet jobs).