Top Law Enforcement Officer is a Liar

Alberto Gonzales is the Attorney General of the United States – the chief law enforcement officer of the Federal Government. He is also a liar. On January 18, 2007 he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that he would “never, ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons….” He also denied any involvement in the firings of eight U.S. Attorneys which appear to be politically motivated.
(See the “Timeline: Behind the Firing of Eight U.S. Attorneys” by NPR’s Ari Shapiro.)

It is implausible to believe that the AG was unaware that in 2006 his chief of staff was in communication with the White House, i.e., Karl Rove and Harriet Miers, to discuss removing U.S. Attorneys they felt were not toeing the Republican, er, sorry, the “Bushie” part line. If we are to buy that, then we’d have to believe that both George and Al were completely oblivious to the machinations of their underlings and minions; that the politically motivated restructuring and awarding of U.S. Attorney positions as spoils of war (against their own administration presumably) to friends was done completely without their knowledge.

Sampson, the AG’s Chief of Staff who liaised between the Office of the AG and the White House, has so far been one of the fall guys. As we’ve come to learn in the past with the Bush administration, the buck doesn’t stop here. It doesn’t stop at all. The craven lack of accountability just goes on and on. Bush continues to reaffirm his faith in Al. Which leads one to believe that Al must have some really good dirt on George.

George is pathologically incapable of admitting mistakes. His staunchness in the face of his party, and the Congress, and the ill winds Al betides for George’s own administration, indicate that as his credibility continues to slip through his hands like water, he continues to tighten his grasp. Still, Alberto’s days as Attorney General are numbered. Every day more information comes out that Al was not the victim of conniving subordinates that he attempts to make himself out as. He had knowledge.

The memos are coming out, which indicate that Al was indeed part of the discussion to fire the U.S. Attorneys. If he was part of the discussion, and he was, then he had to have known that the firings were not about performance, but about political retribution and paying back attorneys who were not living up to the Republican ideals of protecting their patrons and giving a blind eye to those in power.

The question now is how blatantly the Bush administration thinks it can lie to Congress and get away with it. Alberto lied to Congress in his denial of having knowledge and in the firings not being politically motivated. Bush won’t let Rove or Miers testify on the record for fear that they could be held for perjury in face of the lies they would have to spew. They would get caught in their lies of course. Their arrogance has made the sloppy, and made them enemies.

What is the worst thing about all of this is that while Alberto Gonzales is a hypocrite and a liar, he also is the top law enforcement officer in the land. And with callous disregard for his office, and the attorneys who serve him, and the Congress, and the people of the United States, he, like Bush, is through his actions giving us the finger.

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Great, another thing I have to worry about…

The Perils of “Being Smart”
If you believe that you can get better at something, you probably will.

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Puh-leeze.

The firing of U.S. Attorneys was so orchestrated and maneuvered as to have been executed with as much forethought and consideration as the Bushie regime could ever muster.

The only thing Gonzales is sorry about is getting caught.  The man is an embarrassment to lawyers everywhere.  He is the epitome of the craven, self-serving, disgustingly sycophantic, slimy, sleaze bag attorney who will say anything his masters pay him to say.  This is the kind of person who makes me ashamed to be an attorney.  Didn’t he take a vow, an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States, not just as Attorney General, but as an attorney?  What a liar and hypocrite.  He should be disbarred.

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Not enough on his plate…

General Pace has taking to moralizing about gays in the military – because the military doesn’t have enough to do right now and has time and energy to squander on misplaced priorities….

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Why does this bitch not get called out? (or, "Why the blacks, gays, and fatties must all die so Ann Coulter can be happy.”)

The Republican candidates — and Ann Coulter — try out their acts | Salon News

How is it that Ann Coulter can get away with saying Al Gore is fat, Bill Clinton was the first black (“half white, half trash”) president, and that John Edwards is a “faggot,” without everyone in the room giving her the bitch-slap she so richly deserves? Okay, granted these are Republicans, but are there no fat Republicans? Are there no black Republicans? Are there no gay Republicans? (No, these are not meant to be trick questions.) Aren’t those some of the groups that the Republicans normally try to round up into a dog and pony show around the time of the National Convention? When that time rolls around again, what self-respecting fat, black, or gay is going to be willing to admit being a Republican when standing next to Coulter? Who’d admit it now? Straight, white, rich college kids, perhaps. Most likely some of whom will end up in Iraq, whether they like it or not, at some point, and will inherit Georgie’s federal deficit and the burden of his tax cuts for the rich, which undermines their own future retirements and medical care, not mention will shift the burden of their parents’ onto them as well.

Is there any Republican who is not embarrassed to have this bigoted, homophobic toxic waste dump of a human being invited to stand on a platform and represent them to the world? Why don’t the Republicans do something to shut her up? Are they afraid that if they said something she’d turn her invective against them? She’d call them big, fat, black, fags too? Hey, Giuliani! Hey, Romney! Hey, McCain! Pay attention, because when it comes down to the primaries, she’s going to have her sights on at least a couple of you.

Coulter called the 9/11 widows “witches” (because even her cojones weren’t big enough to come right out and articulate the blatant sub-text of the term – being used as cover for the word “bitches”) for wanting to have congressional hearings surrounding the circumstances of their husbands deaths, and whether or not the President had any warning of a possible attack, and then accusing them of politicizing their husbands deaths. Coulter is so intellectually dishonest that she has penned an apologia for Joseph McCarthy. Coulter doesn’t descend into ad hominem attacks, but starts there. Coulter has the gall to call John Edwards a “faggot” and then deny being homophobic. She goes one step further and perpetuates further myths about gays making more money than straights, and being victims, so “they should be natural Republicans.” Gee, Anne, except people like you, the cultural representatives of the party, keep making derogatory remarks about “faggots” and then denying them equal civil rights.

Obviously she is someone who is really, seriously, psychologically damaged in some profound manner. That is not meant to excuse her disgusting actions in any way. It is, however, the only possible explanation how someone who is the epitome of the elite – white, educated, well-off – can perceive themselves as a victim. There has to be a cognitive distortion of incredible proportions to allow her to believe herself to be in the right about so many things, when by objective standards she is so wrong. Her mind has taken the task of bending and interpretting her perceptions of reality to conform to some twisted paradigm, which in her own deluded little way satisfies some internal need.

Perhaps she is suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome of some kind. Perhaps she’s on drugs. (Just step away from the pipe, Ann.) Perhaps she’s one of these people who has everything – the privilege, the education, the money – who is still miserable because every day she has to get up in the morning and look at herself in the mirror. She can’t stand the person she is, that vile morass of black evil with bad hair, so she has to externalize all those bad feelings. “Eew. Icky.” she says to herself. “I can’t handle these feelings of not liking myself. I need to find a way to deal with them.” So she projects them onto others. Because it is black people, and gays, and fat people who have made life really hard for Ann Coulter. If all those blacks, and gays, and fatties, would just die, Ann could be happy.