This country has had all kinds of attorney generals through history — vicious, venal, vapid, virtuous. Alberto Gonzales is, however, the most vacuous of the lot. It appears he has spent too much time with the dementors at the White House and they’ve sucked out his soul. The man is so cavalier with the truth it appears he is mentally ill.
Beyond that I don’t have anything to add that Functional Ambivalent hasn’t already said better.
C’mon John Conyers, start the hearings on impeaching Gonzales’s sorry ass.
GONZALES: I clarified my statement two days later with the reporter.
SCHUMER: What did you say to the reporter?
GONZALES: I did not speak directly to the reporter.
SCHUMER: Oh, wait a second — you did not.
(LAUGHTER)
OK. What did your spokesperson say to the reporter?
GONZALES: I don’t know. But I told the spokesperson to go back and clarify my statement…
That Alberto Gonzales is a serial liar — including when he testifies under oath to Congress — has been long-established, and few people now bother to dispute it. He has been lying to Congress’ face about the NSA scandal since it first emerged in December of 2005. When he first testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee in February, 2006, he made a series of statements that turned out to he so obviously false that he was forced to send a lengthy letter “correcting” and retracting so many of the key answers he gave.
That is what Alberto Gonzales does. He lies to protect the President. And the President will never fire him. Gonzales isn’t keeping his job despite his willingness to lie to Congress, but because of it. Congress has no choice to act meaningfully — impeachment of Gonzeles and a Special Prosecutor — and if they do not, then, I suppose, one could say that Congress deserves to be lied to.