Alberto Gonzales Can’t Find a Job, Whines
Alberto Gonzlaes has decided to write a book. It will consist of several hundred blank pages, as he simply doesn’t recall much of what he did during his tenure in the Bush Administration. What is pitiful is that Gonzales compares himself to victims of the War on Terror, because the Senate picked on him, I suppose. Shameful and pitiful.
Republicans have been unable or unwilling to protect their own, and have not found a nice, cushy job for amnesiac and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Poor Alberto Gonzales. He’s whining to the Wall Street Journal about his treatment on Captial Hill and et cetera, and has now decided to write a tell all book. (OK, the jokes about how he could possibly write a book if he “can’t recall” are cheap, if accurate.) Gonzales, famous for tracking down John Ashcroft in order to justify violating the constitution with the NSA domestic surveillance program, is now whining because, as a lawyer charged with knowing the law, he’s got a track record of not recalling how he violated the constitution. But the whiney complaints are good reading, at least when in a Wall Street Journal blog:
Mr. Gonzales has been portrayed by critics both as unqualified for his position and instrumental in laying the groundwork for the administration’s “war on terror.” He was pilloried by Congress in a manner not usually directed toward cabinet officials.
“What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?” he said during an interview Tuesday, offering his most extensive comments since leaving government.
During a lunch meeting two blocks from the White House, where he served under his longtime friend, President George W. Bush, Mr. Gonzales said that “for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.”
This is pretty much the most clueless statement I can imagine. The treatment Gonzales received concerned the program of politicizing the department he was in charge of, the Department of Justice. It came after a string of answers which showed Gonzales either didn’t know at all what was happening in his own DOJ, or was purposely misleading Senators with a string of “I do not recall” answers. Gonzales now doesn’t just fail to recall, he fails to understand the enormity of his incometencies. Look for no responsibility taken in this book.
Worse here is that Gonzales compares himself to the real victims in the War on Terror, the men and women who died on 9/11, the soldiers who died because of Bush’s policies, the tens of thousands of Iraqi dead. . . those are victims of the “War on Terror.” Mr. Gonzales is at worst complicit in some of those deaths in that he helped justify some ugly policies. At best, Gonzales is merely a bumbling incompetent, and thus his is not a tragic story. Tragedy requires one fall from great heights, after all, and while Gonzales’ role in the Bush Administration was a high-ranking one, it was still a role in the failed and incompetent Bush Administration.
The interview with the WSJ is a bit pitiful and self-serving, of course. Gonzales is a Republican, after all. Here’s another excerpt:
Among other things, Mr. Gonzales said Tuesday that he didn’t play a central role in drafting the widely criticized legal opinions that allowed the Central Intelligence Agency to use aggressive interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects and expanded the president’s power to hold “unlawful combatants” and terrorism suspects indefinitely. He also said he told the truth to Congress about a classified eavesdropping program authorized by the president, and admitted to making mistakes in handling the U.S. attorney firings while maintaining that he made the right decisions. He says that while he bears responsibility as former Attorney General that “doesn’t absolve other individuals of responsibility.”
Mr. Gonzales, 53 years old, doesn’t have a publisher for his book. He said he is writing it if only “for my sons, so at least they know the story.”
This last bit seems a bit poignant. Gonzales gives excuses about his behavior concerning the NSA program and the torture policies of the Bush Administration, and then cops a little responsibility about the US Attorney scandal. I’m surprised he admits to anything, really. This guy is universally considered a liar and an incompetent, after all. But it is poignant because it appears Gonzales knows that the only ones he can convince about his good name and reputation are his own sons. How far he has fallen.
Let’s not let Alberto Gonzales off the hook, though. He was a lawyer with a degree from Harvard when he was hired by President Bush. He’d worked for Bush in Texas, so likely knew what he was getting himself in for. There are no excuses for the damage he did to our constitution, and while Alberto Gonzales’ sons may indeed believe his accounts, it is unlikely anyone else will. I’m just wondering where the man finds a publisher who will touch the book.
He was just a victim after all. How could you expect the chief lawyer of the land to have any control or responsibility for the things done under his command? The Republican gift for cognitive dissonance never stops giving.
But it is poignant because it appears Gonzales knows that the only ones he can convince about his good name and reputation are his own sons
And maybe not even them eventually. That would be a fitting (though only partial) ‘reward’ for his sterling public service to his country, not to mention the rest of the world.
I am not religious, but I am told there is a very special place in Hell for morally bankrupt functionaries and enablers like Gonzales.
‘Et’ is latin for and. You don’t need ‘and’ when you say ‘et cetera.’ You’ve essentially said, “and and more.”
Good to see this Communist scoundrel is being banned from public service.
In case anyone hasn’t noticed, the bankers are running the country and treat the populace as objects for their use, as farm animals.Every subtext of the BushCo adnminstration must be viewed as work for their real masters, the banksters, the Wall Street thieves who are still taking 100 million dollar bonuses this 2008 end of year season. Bush is just their marketing man. Gonzales is nothing more than an operative of the Communists who are taking over every business through their “stock market” and financial engineering and flooding the people with “Homeland Security” and lots of feelgood talk and “Patriotism.” It is such a complete scam while the people are again having every money and value removed from their work.
As long as he’s not in jail, he should consider himself lucky.
Gosh, thanks Derek. I forgot my Latin.
What a putz
The “publisher” he finds will probably be a ‘vanity press’ type company. Not the mega-bucks upfront that Random House or any other reputible publisher would pay. You pay the vanity companies, they put it out, the author gets paid if it sells.
He’ll find the same sort of publisher that publishes ‘Obama Nation’: one that exists solely to reward right wing water carriers. After all, some people were paying this guy $40k to do speeches a few years ago. They’ll buy advance copies of his book for thei think tanks, basically to give him money, and then talk about it on Fox News for a few days.
Excuse my french, but His ass needs to be in prison wit Bubba.
You know what the real shame is?
The American Sheeple stand by and allow the people who are in power, the Government and the rich who rule this country, to continually pass laws which harm millions of Americans.
When will Americans wake up and realize we are losing our constitutional rights!!!
http://www.cfcameria.org
This slime ball, George Bush and his Dick, Cheney have single handedly paved the way for us all to lose all our rights.
Thomas Jefferson said it this way, The Tree of Liberty needs to be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
Condileeza Rice stated on National TV, Bush will NOT be impeached!
Bush/Hitler.. what is the difference?
Gee, Steven, it’s not just your Latin.
Putz is yiddish for “what” so you’ve basically said “What a what”
Okay, I keed, I keed. Still, you could spell incometencies better. It would enhance the sting when you “putz” us for trying to help you improve your screed. Try to think of people who bother to take the time as being on your side.
What happened to Gonzales is pitiful, actually. The Bushes are part of a very tiny elite group of descendants of European blue bloods who have nevert caree one whit about any country, any party, any constitution. They equally hate people of their own race if they are not part of their highly-elite group. Their only allegiance is to their CLASS of blue bloods.
Much like in middle school or high school, they are accustomed to using the talents and the possessions of those whom they know will never fit in. They treat them like “one of the elite” as long as they are “useful” but when they are no longer amused, when they no longer in need of them, they dump the dupes and leave them scratching their heads and often holding a very smelly bag.
Alberto Gonzales is a Mexican American. He is not the descendant of a European blue blood. While he actually did quite admirably “pull himself up by his bootstraps,” as the power class often counsels, it is of no matter. If you are not of the hereditary power elite class, you never will be. You will be used until you are not useful anymore.
People have accused me and those who write or speak this way of starting a “class war.” Another trick of the selfish power elite! One of their signature ploys is to accuse others of doing what they have been practicing for a long time - perhaps generations - in order to dissimulate. The class war has been on for several generations now. Gonzales is a foolish, ambitious pawn in the self-serving elite game.
Don’t hold your breath expecting that his overlords will ever get their due punishment! Instead the clowns they have induced to do their dirty work will absorb all that is due the selfish, lying, amoral power elite.
Happy New Year!
@ leftyintexas:
Sorry about the spelling mistakes!
How are the the men and women who died on 9/11 victims of the Iraq War? Chornologically, the attacks took place before the war and the people who died had no connection to the events in Iraq
I agree with the rest of your post, but I think that you should be careful when making such claims.
“What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?” he said during an interview Tuesday, offering his most extensive comments since leaving government.
Maybe it was that whole undermining the rule of law for political purposes you fucking traitorous douchebag. Maybe not telling Bush NO on torture and NO on breaking FISA. Maybe it was you not investigating the very OBVIOUS federal law violations or even starting any indictments. You’re the fucking top prosecutor in the nation but you sat idly by during years of corruption because your buddies were the one doing it.
I hope you end up on the unemployment line, broken and bankrupt for the shit you helped to do to this nation. They might be hiring at McDonald’s you asshole.
leftyintexas wrote:
No, it’s not. He hasn’t even gotten what’s coming to him. He’s not starving and he’ll probably end up with a consulting job for Blackwater or Fox News or something. He’s been a lawyer for years. He knew precisely what he was doing. It’s not like he got somehow ‘tricked’ into helping Bush like Colin Powell did. He also knows that if there was any slight doubt about how to interpret the Constitution or the Law he should have gone to either Congress or the SCOTUS. Instead he decided to allow third rate shitheads like John Yoo to author legal opinions to allow the executive to violate the law, the constitution and some of our most valued and valuable precedents - that the United States does not torture for example.
Given that those opinions undermined the war effort, destroyed the US Public image in the world and gave Bin Ladin the best possible recruitment tool he could ever wish Gonzales is very much a traitor. If the worst that can possibly happen to him is that he never works in law again - then GOOD. We don’t need a lying, partisan hack like him being anywhere near the law.