The Rules of Resignation

Over the past few weeks, we have seen two significant resignations from within the United States’ government. It may not seem particularly urgent, but the last time that happened in Westminster, it was Claire Short and Robin Cook who met their political ends. I would venture that Mr Cook’s resignation was one of the most significant events in British politics at the time, and his speech was nothing short of Churchillian in its gravitas; view the speech or video here.

In politics, a solely voluntary resignation is incredibly rare. To hand, the first one I can think of was Harold Macmillan’s decision to step down as Prime Minister in 1963, when he was diagnosed (mistakenly) with prostate cancer at age 63. Ministers resign left, right and centre and as such, a few lines are reused from time to time.

Carl Rove was the first to go. His excuse was that he ‘wanted to spend more time with his family’. I do not think anybody could have timed it better, since his resignation came into effect two days before his son left for university. Mr Rove is usually credited as ‘Bush’s Brain’ so I cannot wait to see what crazy shenanigans the novelty president will create in the final months. I have read numerous articles about Carl Rove and most people view him as half genius, half Satan- a sort of Emperor Palpatine character; Dick Cheney plays Darth Vader in numerous editorial cartoons and George Bush… well, I suppose he would be Jar Jar Binks.

The “51 percent doctrine” is Carl Rove’s pet contribution to political strategy, which states that you only need 51% of the votes to win, so do not bother aiming higher than that. To me, this is a given, as it certainly should not take a genius to invent the idea of “doing the bare minimum to succeed.” Logically, there is no reason to keep Carl Rove on the White House’s staff, as his main purpose no longer exists since the constitution (despite being incredibly flexible over the course of this administration) forbids a president from running for more than two terms. I wonder if his resignation was actually a bone for the media to distract them from a much more insidious story…

The second resignation came from Alberto Gonzales. Admittedly, this story has been incredibly quiet in the British press, but I find it both amusing and interesting, although I see American news through the eyes of shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Mr Gonzales was the Attorney-General, which I believe is an infinitely important role. If my knowledge from watching season 5 of 24 is accurate, he is the only person who can bring down the president and start impeachment proceedings. It is my understanding that justice is supposed to be impartial to the differences between partisan politics, and thus it is a breach of the law to fire US attorneys who oppose the views of the current government, which is supposedly what he probably definitely did, even though he is innocent until he is caught and is subsequently pardoned. (Until then, I will just have to imagine him tying Lady Justice to some train tracks, like in so many old films.) There has been an attempt to veil the whole scandal of course, but Mr Gonzales lacks the performance skills required to face so many hearings; in one meeting he said “I do not recall” over 70 times.

I can understand why humour may currently struggle past “Americans are stupid” considering how naturally comic the current government is. I do not often appreciate irrational anti-Americanism (“some of my best friends are American”) although I cannot help but think about Charles de Gaulle when he said, “You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.”