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5/15/07
The Tortured world of Alberto Gonzales

In 2005, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales gathered U.S. attorneys at a secret indoctrination center to give them a speech. He wanted to let them know who they worked for before they skipped off thinking they were to apply the law justly.

According to John McKay, one of the U.S. attorneys fired in the Department of Justice's famous attorney massacre, Gonzales told them, "I work for the White House, you work for the White House." And they thought they were working for the American people. How quaint. Even as I write, the attorney general is sleazing through a second congressional hearing ridding the House of the truth using a bad memory as his dust mop.

Dust mop or not, the truth clings like cat hair. And the truth is: if U.S. attorneys work for the White House, it's no stretch to say The Law itself works for the White House. When the law becomes a political tool of the White House, the law is nothing but a big ol' thumbscrew in the hands of partisan tune-up mechanics. And you don't have to pick your way through subtext or complicated shop manuals to figure out who the White House itself is tinkering in behalf of either. Just follow the money.

The Bush presidency, supported by the power of corporations, is an administration of the elite, for the elite. And Gonzales is just a willing cog in the machine that has turned the idea and ideals of America on its head.

Alex Gibney, documentary film producer writing for the Huffington Post, says," Gonzales is the consummate bureaucrat he skitters around in the footnotes of the law, avoiding fundamental principles "

Let's remember, this is the man who told Republican Sen. Arlen Specter that there was no affirmative right to habeas corpus in the Constitution, only a prohibition against its suspension. But why would the framers seek to prohibit the suspension of a right that doesn't exist in the first place? Sadly, illogic is no problem for either the A.G. or the thugs he works for. In fact, it looks like there is no principle Gonzales holds as dear as loyalty to his Godfather.

A little history backs this up. Gonzales, a lawyer formerly employed by Enron and its shysters, once labored to keep Bush's DUI conviction under wraps. He also prepared 57 death penalty memoranda for Texas governor Bush, urging death while ignoring "clear evidence of clemency," Gibney says. In fact, The Atlantic noted that during the six years of Bush's governorship, 152 men and women were executed -- a kind of Guinness world record in legal American homicide that Alberto signed onto with gusto.

What's more, Gonzales is our first modern American pro-torture attorney general.

As sure as God made sycophants, Mr. Gonzales is quite the guy. And being a "consummate bureaucrat," he's honed his skills as a classic fog-meister. Reading a list of torture techniques, Sens. John McCain and Carl Levin once asked Gonzales if evidence obtained through the use of, say, waterboarding, would be admissible in Bush's military tribunals. The Big Boss of Justice in the Land of the Free just pointed out the obvious without answering the question. He said, "Well sir, I think most importantly, I can't imagine such testimony would be reliable."

In spite of all of this and his clear incompetence (and/or willful lack of oversight in the firing of the U.S. Attorneys), the New York Times says Gonzales " appears confident that he will survive the crisis as White House aides who view him as a liability see little point in trying to persuade President Bush to push him out"

Odd, isn't it? Or, as Sen. Chuck Schumer of the Senate Judiciary Committee said in reference to the resignation of Gonzales' Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, "It seems ironic that Paul McNulty, who at least tried to level with the committee, goes while Gonzales, who stonewalled the committee, is still in charge."

Bad enough; but now we have the testimony of James Comey who renders a vivid picture of the lengths to which Gonzales will go in his dedication to the anti-constitutional whims of his boss, the Great Decider. Comey, who served as acting Attorney General when former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, was out of commission with acute pancreatitis, tells a story that sounds like something out of "The Godfather."

Here's the scene according to Comey. Two thuggish characters enter a darkened hospital room with a document they want to have signed by the very sick man in bed who's almost delirious in recuperation. The two goons look a lot like Gonzales, Counsel to the President, and Andrew Card, the president's chief of staff. They're there to strong-arm this enfeebled guy to overrule Comey on the issue of the illegality of the president's program of warrantless surveillance of the American people. Fortunately, Comey gets there in the nick of time to prevent this coup while, amazingly, the weakened Ashcroft heroically raises his head from his pillow and says to the nefarious Gonzales and Card, "No way Jose! Or Alberto whatever your name is." So, their plot foiled, the two goons split before the cops show.

Having an attorney general with such a background serving as the nation's top officer of the law, what do we expect, blind justice and fair trials? We're more likely to get horse heads in our beds and eternity in Gitmo.