posted by Damozel |
Ruth
Marcus wrote an opinion piece comparing AG the AG to one of my all-time
favorite fictional characters from one of my all-time favorite works of
fiction, "Bartleby the Scrivener" [read it here!]
Like the maddening scrivener of Melville's short story who would not leave his job, Gonzales was possessed of a "wonderful mildness." Senators of both parties might rage at his transparent evasions, but "not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him." He was passive in the face of partisan and even bipartisan aggression.
"It was truly a beautiful thought to have assumed Bartleby's departure; but, after all, that assumption was simply my own, and none of Bartleby's," Melville's narrator observed. "The great point was, not whether I had assumed that he would quit me, but whether he would prefer so to do." (Marcus)
I
have a hard time superimposing the ghostly pale, silent Bartleby's gaunt visage over
the garrulous Gonzalez's appealing little mug (dimples, pinchable cheeks,
specs, and all), but certainly Gonzalez showed a certain impressive, if
negative, force of character in his apparent immovability. In his
own way, he certainly managed to be as much of a blank stone wall as Bartleby
did in his. Marcus nails it here:
Gonzales proved that he could, at least for a time, defy the laws of political gravity. By the end, members of his own party -- privately, for certain, and some publicly -- had had enough of his eternal-sunshine-of-the-spotless-mind memory and his hair-splitting approach to the truth. Gonzales stayed long enough to drain his departure of nearly all its political benefit. His resignation made Donald Rumsfeld's exit look precipitous. (Marcus)
But
of course, as Marcus, points out, the real power behind Gonzalez, a Bartleby's
Bartleby, is Bush, a man whose power to moot all opposition by planting himself
in his corner and refusing to budge is George W. Bush. Every attempt to
get him to see reason, or even just to compromise, is received with a bland
"I would prefer not to." Even laws passed by Congress get
preferenced out of relevance via his signing orders.
It's really Bush's powers of denial and negation that have kept Gonzo going:
Asked
about his attorney general at a news conference this month, Bush bristled.
"Implicit in your questions is that Al Gonzales did something wrong. I
haven't seen Congress say he's done anything wrong," he said.
Yesterday, Bush complained of "months of
unfair treatment that has created a harmful distraction at the Justice
Department." He added: "It's sad that we live in a time when a
talented and honorable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeding from doing
important work because his good name was dragged through the mud for political
reasons." (Marcus)
For every event, there is a frame through which
to see it, and for every frame a reframe. What does Bush get out of
planting himself immovably in his positions besides a cramped sense of reality
besides the gratification of his preferences? And what is the
gratification of preferences unshared by the others who are forced to share
your space except an assertion of power?
The world's Bartlebys tend to have an impact on reality in direct proportion to
their preference for denying it. In the Melville story, the narrator
eventually gets himself free in one sense, but in another, never. By the
sheer force of preferring not to adapt themselves to the will of the people or
their elected representatives, Gonzalez and Bush have left great big Gonzo and
W-shaped imprints on our nation, our history as a people, and our views of
democracy and the constitution.
Ah, Alberto! Ah, humanity!
LINKED, QUOTED, CITED
- Washington Post: Ruth Marcus, Bush's Immovable Man Moves On (Marcus)
- Bartleby the Scrivener (Herman Melville)
RELATED BN-POLITICS POSTS:
- A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning. Bloggers Say Farewell to Gonzalez.
- John Edwards Tersely Comments on the Departure of Gonzalez.
- U.S. Attorney General Resigns
For more detailed background, see BN-Politics' Justice Dept. section.
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