Who can take the rule of law
And suddenly make it just fade away?
Well it's you, Albie, and you should know it
With each glance and every little movement, you show it
Hate is all around
No need to find it
You can destroy a town
And you wouldn't mind it
You're going to shred the Constitution after all.
It's The Alberto Gonzales Show!
Starring Albert Gonzales.
After a rough first marriage, Albert Gonzales decides to make a fresh start and hitches his wagon to the Bully Boy. Eventually, he lands in DC. As White House consel, he renders the Geneva Conventions "quaint." He clamped down on the public's right to know by restricting the Freedom of Information Act. He moved on to Attorney General where, when not speaking publicy about porn, he carved out time for the illegal, warrantless, NSA spying on American citizens and, more recently, was involved in the conspiracy to fire eight US attorneys, replace them with lackeys (including a Karl Rove pet, Tim Griffin) and circumvent the Congressional approval. At first, the White House attempted to scapegoat Harriet Miers and portray Gonzales as having clean hands, then the e-mails started coming out and they demonstrate Gonzales was as deep in the conspiracy as Miers -- if not deeper since it was his job to oversee the attorneys and it was his job to know what was going on.
On Tuesday, Gonzales held a for show press conference filled with one laugh getter after another. "I acknowledge that mistakes were made here," he declared. "I accept that responsibility."
The lengthier version went:
I believe in accountability. Like every CEO of every major organization, I am responsible for what happens at the Department of Justice. I acknowledge that mistakes were made here. I accept that responsibility and my pledge to the American people is to find out what went wrong here, to assess accountability, and to make improvements so that the mistakes in this instance do not occur again in the future. Finally, let me just say one thing: I've overcome a lot of obstacles in my life to become Attorney General. I am here not because I give up. I am here because I've learned from my mistakes, because I accept responsibility, and because I am committed to doing my job. And that is what I intend to do here on behalf of the American people.
CEO? He's not a CEO, he's a public servant and that carries with it more obligations than does being a CEO of a company. When he brought up the line about "I've overcome a lot of obstacles in my life," we thought he was referring to ethnicity (in which case, he is aware that David Iglesias is Hispanic -- one of the eight who got fired?). Then we read Andrew Zajac's laughable piece (Chicago Tribune) and decided Gonzales was playing drama queen. His father was repeatedly arrested for drunk driving. A brother died in 1980 and no one wants to talk about why or how. At one point, Zajac gets all excited over a story Gonzales has told for over a year now -- that in high school, he dated a woman whose parents didn't like him because he was "Mexican." We've heard that story, Zajac, over and over. But maybe Gonzales meant this tidbit Zajac tosses out:
In January 2000, while Gonzales sat on the Texas Supreme Court, his sister Theresa and an accomplice were arrested in a Houston-area drug bust in which police seized 40 grams of cocaine, nearly a pound of marijuana, more than $3,000 in cash, an assault rifle, a sawed-off shotgun and a .50 caliber handgun, plus several hundred rounds of ammunition.
Court records indicate that at the time of her arrest, Theresa Gonzales was on 10 years' probation following a guilty plea to a similar charge in 1991.
Theresa Gonzales was sentenced to 90 days' "jail therapy" and the charge against her was dismissed, court records show.
Zajac then tells you that the White House says Gonzales never even knew about his sister's arrest or trial until after the verdict. Really? She was on ten years probation which had yet to expire (on probation for "a similar charge") and she's busted with a sawed off shotgun, grass and coke and and "jail therapy" (for 90 days) is what she's sentenced to? Yeah, let's all pretend strings weren't pulled there to please/appease Gonzales (who was then sitting on the Texas Supreme Court).
Zajac apparently never thought to call a prosecuter from the area and ask, "Is this a normal sentence?" (It isn't.) Zajac appears to have only called numbers he was given by whomever fed him this attempt at "Sympathy for the Devil." That would explain why, while supposedly writing about the life of Gonzales, he has no idea that Gonzales has been married twice. Search in vain for the name Diane Clemens.
The long running joke that is the public servent career of Alberto Gonzales seems destined to continue unless or until the press can't stop looking the other way and minimizing his actions, past and present.
