4/20/07
The “bit” I’m alluding to in my devilishly clever title up there is Mr. Short-Term-Memory from the very forgettable early ‘90s on SNL, where Tom Hanks portrays a man who can’t hold memories for more than a few seconds. You may have seen the dramatic interpretation Memento. The only thing I remember about the skit was that Tom is on a date at a restaurant and at one point takes a bite of food, chews, spits it out, looks at it and says, “This restaurant serves already chewed food!”
At least that was what I thought of as I watched our esteemed US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales get abused like a German Goo Girl (no way am I linking to that) during a Senate panel hearing yesterday. Both Democrats and Republicans on the panel verbally ass-pounded Gonzales concerning his knowledge and involvement in the politically-motivated firing of 8 federal prosecutors*.
It quickly became apparent that Gonzales was going to be less than forthcoming with the information, as he has either completely lost his grip on time, space and the nature of reality, or is a liar. Gonzales admitted only to remembering that yes, he had made the decision to fire the attorneys, but not when, where, and indeed what that decision had entailed. Gonzales reached a new high of surreal fuckery when he said that even though he didn’t remember making the decision or for what reasons he made it, it was still the right call and he would do it again. If you can follow the crazy-straw string of logic involved in that statement you’re a better man than I.
During the 5 hour testimony, Gonzales claimed to have either “no recollection” or no memory of an event over 70 times. That’s an “I fer-got” every two and a half minutes, for those of you keeping score at home. The senators weren’t buying it, either.
Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) had the honor of perhaps the most gracious way to call someone a bald-faced, fucking liar: “The reality is that your characterization of your participation is just significantly, if not totally, at variance with the facts.”
The pummeling Gonzales received couldn’t have been more painful if the senators just stood up and started whaling on him with socks full of quarters. The best the poor bastard could muster was to say that he was just following orders from the White House and Justice Department, and remained willfully ignorant of why or what he was doing. He seems to prefer being thought of as a totally inept yes-man, rather than an incompetent attorney general tampering with the integrity of the federal judiciary.
Republicans on the panel lobbed the most damaging questions to Gonzales, with Tom Coburn (R-OK) delivering the coup de grâce. “Why should you not be judged by the same standards by which you judged these dismissed U.S. attorneys?
“I believe there are consequences to a mistake,” Coburn continued. “And I would just say, Mr. Attorney General, it’s my considered opinion that the exact same standards should be applied to you in how this was handled. And it was handled incompetently. The communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It’s generous to say that there were misstatements. That’s a generous statement. And I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered. And I believe that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.” [1]
After the sound paddling was finally over, the White House issued a response saying President Bush is “pleased” with Gonzales’s job performance, confirming that he has the lowest standards for competence on the planet. “Pleased” or not, I can’t imagine Bush is going to keep Gonzo on for much longer. Dubya has nothing to lose by canning him; it will remove the stigma surrounding this criminal dufus and anyone he brings in aside from just giving the job to a plate of moldy peaches is going to seem like a pillar of quality.
The Senate panel has called for the other top administration members implicated in this douchebagery, uber-demon Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, to testify. You may remember Miers in roles such as “hilariously stupid Bush Supreme Court nominee.” Since neither Rove nor Miers are directly connected to oversight committees, they probably can’t be compelled to testify. Not if Dubya has anything to say about it, anyway.
When asked to make Rove and Miers available for testimony, the king of negotiators that is President Bush had a counter-offer: You can have your interview, but it has to be in the White House and there can be no written transcript of the conversations. Oh, and
they won’t be under oath. Great! Bush’s nickname must be Monty Hall. I can fathom no reason to refuse to testify under oath other than to reserve the ability to lie your ass off. In real life that’s called “perjury.” In the White House it’s called “executive privilege.” What a racket.
*Allegedly the attorneys were terminated because of poor performance, but that has since been proved a lie, as all had exemplary records and nothing but brilliant reviews from their bosses. They were, in fact, sacked because their political leanings weren’t in line with the current administration, and I guess Bush and Gonzales decided “what the fuck, we haven’t wiped our asses with the Constitution enough; let’s corn-hole the ethics of the judicial system.”
[1] National Review Online, Byron York
The “bit” I’m alluding to in my devilishly clever title up there is Mr. Short-Term-Memory from the very forgettable early ‘90s on SNL, where Tom Hanks portrays a man who can’t hold memories for more than a few seconds. You may have seen the dramatic interpretation Memento. The only thing I remember about the skit was that Tom is on a date at a restaurant and at one point takes a bite of food, chews, spits it out, looks at it and says, “This restaurant serves already chewed food!”At least that was what I thought of as I watched our esteemed US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales get abused like a German Goo Girl (no way am I linking to that) during a Senate panel hearing yesterday. Both Democrats and Republicans on the panel verbally ass-pounded Gonzales concerning his knowledge and involvement in the politically-motivated firing of 8 federal prosecutors*.
It quickly became apparent that Gonzales was going to be less than forthcoming with the information, as he has either completely lost his grip on time, space and the nature of reality, or is a liar. Gonzales admitted only to remembering that yes, he had made the decision to fire the attorneys, but not when, where, and indeed what that decision had entailed. Gonzales reached a new high of surreal fuckery when he said that even though he didn’t remember making the decision or for what reasons he made it, it was still the right call and he would do it again. If you can follow the crazy-straw string of logic involved in that statement you’re a better man than I.During the 5 hour testimony, Gonzales claimed to have either “no recollection” or no memory of an event over 70 times. That’s an “I fer-got” every two and a half minutes, for those of you keeping score at home. The senators weren’t buying it, either.
Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) had the honor of perhaps the most gracious way to call someone a bald-faced, fucking liar: “The reality is that your characterization of your participation is just significantly, if not totally, at variance with the facts.”The pummeling Gonzales received couldn’t have been more painful if the senators just stood up and started whaling on him with socks full of quarters. The best the poor bastard could muster was to say that he was just following orders from the White House and Justice Department, and remained willfully ignorant of why or what he was doing. He seems to prefer being thought of as a totally inept yes-man, rather than an incompetent attorney general tampering with the integrity of the federal judiciary.
Republicans on the panel lobbed the most damaging questions to Gonzales, with Tom Coburn (R-OK) delivering the coup de grâce. “Why should you not be judged by the same standards by which you judged these dismissed U.S. attorneys?
“I believe there are consequences to a mistake,” Coburn continued. “And I would just say, Mr. Attorney General, it’s my considered opinion that the exact same standards should be applied to you in how this was handled. And it was handled incompetently. The communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It’s generous to say that there were misstatements. That’s a generous statement. And I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered. And I believe that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.” [1]
After the sound paddling was finally over, the White House issued a response saying President Bush is “pleased” with Gonzales’s job performance, confirming that he has the lowest standards for competence on the planet. “Pleased” or not, I can’t imagine Bush is going to keep Gonzo on for much longer. Dubya has nothing to lose by canning him; it will remove the stigma surrounding this criminal dufus and anyone he brings in aside from just giving the job to a plate of moldy peaches is going to seem like a pillar of quality.
The Senate panel has called for the other top administration members implicated in this douchebagery, uber-demon Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, to testify. You may remember Miers in roles such as “hilariously stupid Bush Supreme Court nominee.” Since neither Rove nor Miers are directly connected to oversight committees, they probably can’t be compelled to testify. Not if Dubya has anything to say about it, anyway.When asked to make Rove and Miers available for testimony, the king of negotiators that is President Bush had a counter-offer: You can have your interview, but it has to be in the White House and there can be no written transcript of the conversations. Oh, and
they won’t be under oath. Great! Bush’s nickname must be Monty Hall. I can fathom no reason to refuse to testify under oath other than to reserve the ability to lie your ass off. In real life that’s called “perjury.” In the White House it’s called “executive privilege.” What a racket.*Allegedly the attorneys were terminated because of poor performance, but that has since been proved a lie, as all had exemplary records and nothing but brilliant reviews from their bosses. They were, in fact, sacked because their political leanings weren’t in line with the current administration, and I guess Bush and Gonzales decided “what the fuck, we haven’t wiped our asses with the Constitution enough; let’s corn-hole the ethics of the judicial system.”
[1] National Review Online, Byron York
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