Alberto Gonzales: Victim of the War of Error?
December 31st, 2008 | by Omnipotent Poobah |It would seem life on the mean streets of the post-Bush era is tough for ex-AGs – particularly political gadfly and ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Gonzo loyally protected his boss with the world’s worst imitation of an amnesiac and George repaid his efforts by kicking him to the curb when his sorry-assed performance splashed mud on the Presidential Tony Lamas.
A case of no honor among the gracelessly inept I suppose.
Al the Ambulance Chaser
The job market for disgraced top cops with questionable legal skills isn’t what it used to be and poor Gonzo now finds himself unemployed – reduced to giving speeches and doing the routine arbitration and mediation work of your typical ambulance chaser. But even in his moment of despair and humiliation, Gonzo shows off his true-Bush colors by professing shock and awe at his fall from grace.
“What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?” he asked the Wall Street Journal. “For some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with,” Gonzales said. “I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.”
This from a man who tracked down his predecessor in a hospital bed to sign off on extended wiretapping authority and prompting a standoff with the FBI and John Ashcroft’s wife. He’s also the man who painted himself in the corner over possible meddling with US attorneys – a charge that’s still under investigation. And, it was under his tenure that habeas corpus was suspended for internees and that the question of torture became a nagging boil on the arse of the US.
But other than that, a fine job indeed.
Victim of the War of Error
Gonzo doesn’t seem to understand why law firms are “skittish” about hiring him and so martyrific that he sees himself as “one of the many casualties of the war on terror” – a point that many families of dead or wounded soldiers might find hard to swallow.
I suppose that breathing the rarified air of the power elite does that to a person. Like a pampered Hollywood starlet, it’s easy to lose your moral compass when you shit your pants and are given a Presidential Attaboy for your “service” to the country.
It would behoove Gonzo to look just tad deeper for answers.
If your defense against charges of political meddling waffle between knowing nothing about how your own shop made decisions to just repeating “I dunno” like a crazed Zen master, law firms will be skittish. If you make decisions that skirt – or perhaps break – the bounds of Constitutionality, law firms will be skittish. If you support “reforms” allowing “enhanced interrogation methods” that are swept away and replaced with opinions – from your own team – that torture is “abhorrent”, firms will be skittish. And finally, if a well-known shit heel like George Bush – dark prince to some of the most loathsome crapweasels around – finds it necessary to run from you like you’re an Iraqi shoe salesman, you won’t even get an audition as comic relief on Boston Legal.
Yeah, it’s a puzzler, ain’t it?
Cross posted at The Omnipotent Poobah Speaks!
3 Responses to “Alberto Gonzales: Victim of the War of Error?”
By Big Fella on Jan 1, 2009 | Reply
Why is Gonzo so mystified at his being a pariah? Well when you have had your head so far up your boss’s ass for so many years, you lose all perspective on reality.
By Lisa on Jan 1, 2009 | Reply
People already have their heads up the “New” Administrations arse for fear of the farthest reach of power the new govenment is aligned for.
Betchya!
By kountmein on Jan 1, 2009 | Reply
Well, I am glad he is gone along with the rest of this very f*%#-up administration. I think that the best way forward is the way of hope. Just red a good statement about it at http://nodsavid.blogspot.com/2008/12/year-that-was.html