And now a word about Alberto Gonzalez...

Honestly, did you ever, in your wildest, freakiest dreams imagine that the day would come when you would actually feel a sense of weepy-eyed nostalgia for the likes of John Mitchell and Ed Meese? Watching the career of a sycophantic, brown-nosing, cowboy boot-licking little nerd like Alberto Gonzalez has almost been worth the price of the ticket. That's the wonderful thing about George W. Bush and the tidal wave of human shit that comprises the most disgusting administration in two-hundred and thirty-one years of American history: in terms of pure theater of the absurd, they are an absolute, gut-busting joy to watch, are they not? We're talkin' laugh riot here, folks! If you just ignore the nasty little fact that the damage they have done to our once-great nation will still be reverberating a century and a half from now, watching them in action can be loads of fun. Let's face some facts here, people: unintentional humor can be highly entertaining. (Do you remember Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, James Watt? Do you remember Dan Quayle? I rest my case). No doubt about it: These knuckleheads are the Kings of Accidental Comedy! Bush is the Buster Keaton of political the faux pas!
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It doesn't get any better than this; it really doesn't!
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Which brings us back to the subject of poor, pathetic little Alberto Gonzalez, the most corrupt and inept Attorney General of all time. This is the same guy who referred to the provisions mandated in the Geneva Conventions which outlaw torture as "quaint." Isn't that sweet?
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The recent firings of seven U.S. Attorneys have raised the eyebrows of every thinking person across the land. Alberto would have us believe that these prosecutors were fired, not for political reasons (oh, perish the thought, my loves!), but due to "job performance". I must say that there might be more than a little bit of truth in that assertion. By all evidence, the "job performance" of all but one of seven in question was just a tad too competent for the Bush Mob. One of the people who got the ax was U.S. Attorney, Carol Lam of California, whose prosecution last year of Republican Congressman, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, sent that disgraced law maker to prison. According to Paul Krugman, in a column in the New York Times a few weeks ago, "The top F.B.I. official in San Diego told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Ms. Lam's dismissal would undermine multiple continuing investigations." At the time she was given the boot, Lam was in the process of building an influence peddling case against the very defence contractors who compromised Cunningham in the first place.
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This scandal is not even a week old and it's already produced its own "Scooter Libby". On Monday, D. Kyle Sampson, Gonzalez's chief aide, took the fall for the hideous little bastard and promptly resigned. The following day, our comical little Attorney General held a news conference outside of his office at the Justice Department. Acknowledging that "mistakes were made" - although by whom was never clarified - he then went on to say that he took full responsibility for those mistakes. In another, less dumbed-down era, a person who took "full responsibility" for the jaw-dropping ineptitude of an organization of which he was in charge, would immediately tender his resignation. Not Alberto Gonzalez - no sir! Expect him to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom any day now.
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In an article in today's New York Times, David Johnston and Eric Lipton reported that, "In rating the prosecutors, Mr. Sampson [who worked in collusion with former Bush Supreme Court nominee, Harriet Miers] factored in whether they 'exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general,' according to documents released by the Justice Department." When some of these very prosecutors refused to bring charges against certain Democratic politicians for lack of evidence, they wound up on the Bush Justice Department's "strikeout" list. One of the attorneys dismissed, David C. Iglesias of New Mexico, has been described as a "stellar" performer at his job.
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Paul Krugman ended his Times piece by noting that, "the next two years...are going to be a rolling constitutional crisis." That's putting it mildly, to be sure. The excuse that federal prosecutors "serve at the pleasure of the president", while technically true, is entirely missing the point. A chief executive will always begin his term in office by appointing men and women to uphold the laws of the land with whom he feels ideologically comfortable - no problem there - but to target six or seven people for removal without adequate justification in the middle of one's tenure is completely unprecedented. They probably won't report this on FOX News but it is as clear as can be: these people were removed from their positions because of job performance, alright - that's obvious and undeniable - but the sin they committed was doing their jobs honestly. Job security in the Bush administration means playing their sick and corrupt game; marching in lock step to the beat of a spastic drummer. They've politicized everything else, why should you be the least bit surprised that they have now done as much to the Department of Justice?
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What we have here is just one more in an endless litany of misdeeds, corruption and incompetence that has defined this appalling White House's performance from the day they seized power over six years ago. The only encouraging sign tempering an otherwise bleak horizon is the fact that the American people, asleep at the switch for the last quarter of a century, are finally beginning to awaken from the right wing coma they were snoozing under for all those years and are finally starting to realize what's really at stake - representative democracy as we know it. Now there's something to be truly thankful for.
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Did you have a nice nap, kiddies?
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Pray for peace.
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Tom Degan
Goshen, NY
tomdegan@frontiernet.net