I knew that four senators called for a perjury investigation after FBI Director Robert Mueller (and others) flatly contradicted attorney General Alberto Gonzales' sworn testimony re: the NSA's wiretapping. I knew that Gonzales has given "shifting explanations" about the U.S. Attorney firings.
I did not know about the following (from Washington Post):
"When Alberto R. Gonzales was asked during his January 2005 confirmation hearing whether the Bush administration would ever allow wiretapping of U.S. citizens without warrants, he initially dismissed the query as a "hypothetical situation."
"But when Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) pressed him further, Gonzales declared: "It is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes."
As we recently learned, that wasn't true either: 10 months earlier Gonzales (as White House Counsel) went to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft's hospital room to argue about the NSA's legally questionable wiretapping program.
If not for Congress' investigation into the U.S. Attorney firings, we likely wouldn't know this, which makes me wonder why anyone who cares about justice and how tax dollars are spent would oppose the investigation.
Since the scandal broke, Gonzales says that he takes "responsibility," but what does that mean? When someone steals money, "taking responsibility" means paying it back and/or going to jail. When someone lies, "taking responsibility" means confessing the truth.
Gonzales hasn't done anything concrete that even resembles taking responsibility.
A University of Texas poli-sci professor said Gonzales is a "slippery fellow.... trying to keep the president's secrets and to be a team player, even if it means prevaricating...." (WaPo) Slippery is a good word, but it goes beyond that. Gonzales comes off as gentle and mild mannered, but I'm not so sure anymore, especially after reading former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton's account that Gonzales once pushed for the death penalty in a case that severely lacked evidence (no body, no murder weapon, no DNA).
What kind of Attorney General -- what kind of person -- seeks to kill another human being without certainty of guilt? If this is any indication of Gonzales' character, what's a few instances of conveniently failing memory, omissions, or even lies?
UPDATE: I've read interesting details, analyses and conclusions about Gonzales from blogger reactions. Below are just a few examples:
Firedoglake's Scarecrow informed us that: "Fox News’ Chris Wallace pursued the Gonzales story with Senator Feingold but reported that Fox was unable to find any Republican willing to come on the show to defend Gonzales."
At the risk of sounding like Dana Carvey doing Johnny Carson, "I did not know that."
Brian Beutler points out: "this article was co-written by Dan Eggen. Also interestingly, Eggen's name came up in last week's Gonzales testimony when the attorney general suggested he didn't intentionally lie about intelligence activities at a press conference back in June. Apparently, out of a highly moral concern for the truth, Gonzales "corrected the record" two days after the press conference by having somebody on his staff call Eggen to let him know that the intelligence activities Comey called into question had not, in fact, been "confirmed to the American people sometime ago.... It looks very much as if, one way or another, Gonzales lied to him too."
Liberal Media Elite reasons that Gonzales "has always been addled and that should call into question his capability to do his job, any job, in a Presidential administration. Stupid, however, ain’t legally actionable. And that, campers, is the golden chiclet for Fredo. 'I’m just really dumb' don’t make you look so hot but it keeps you out of jail and keeps the Prezzz from being the new Nixon."
In a well-linked piece with many examples, Suburban Guerrilla concluded: "I knew all along that Gonzales, a longtime fixer for this president, was selected for that very quality. His lying is a feature, not a bug."
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