Gonzales’ cheap stunt

April 19, 2007

I suppose it was inevitable. If you criticize the president, you must hate the troops, and if you criticize Alberto Gonzales, you must hate the Justice Department.

Consider this exchange between the Attorney General and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.). (Paul Kiel has the video clip, from which I made this transcription. If there are any errors, they’re mine)

Durbin: “What we have heard here about some of the political considerations, comments about ‘loyal Bushies’ by Kyle Sampson, the involvement of Mr. Rove in the decisions about the fate of some of these U.S. Attorneys raises a serious question as to whether or not your continued service is going to make it difficult for professional prosecutors in the Department of Justice to do their job effectively.”

Gonzales: “Senator, if I could respond, I think again your — it is absolutely true that this is not about Alberto Gonzales; it’s about what’s best for the department and whether or not I can be effective in leading this department. I believe that I can be. I think there are some good things, working with this committee, I can accomplish on behalf of this country. Clearly, there are issue that I have to deal with and I’m going to work as hard as I can to reestablish confidence and trust with this committee and members of Congress, and of course with the career officials at our department. And all the credit, everything that we do, the credit goes to them. And so when there are attacks against the department, you’re attacking the career professionals.”

Durbin: (with visible anger) “Mr. Gonzales, that is like saying, if I disagree with the president’s policy on the war I’m attacking the soldiers.”

Gonzales: “You should attack me.”

Durbin: “Your conduct of this department has made it more difficult for these professionals to do their job effectively.”

Gonzales: “And I’m going to deal with that.”

Durbin: “And if you ignore that reality, then you cannot be effective as an attorney general.”

Gonzales: “Senator, I understand that and I’m going to work at that. What I’m saying is that, be careful about criticizing the department. Criticize me.”

Durbin: “Mr. Gonzales, this testimony today is from you, about your reputation. It is not about the reputation of the men and women working in these offices.”

As cheap stunts go, this is ridiculous.

First, Durbin never “attacked” the Justice Department. It just didn’t happen. Everything Durbin said was directed specifically at the Attorney General and his spectacular errors of fact and judgment. Durbin was defending career DoJ officials, explaining why Gonzales’ incompetence and scandals make their jobs harder.

Second, what possible motivated Gonzales to go after Durbin like this? What kind of strategy, exactly, is being implemented here? Gonzales needs to curry favor with the senators on this committee, particularly Dems who’ve been calling for his ouster. Can the AG seriously believe falsely accusing the Senate Minority Whip is going to help save his faltering career?

As for Gonzales’ repeated request — “attack me” — I don’t imagine Durbin and his Dem colleagues will have too much trouble with this appeal.

If there are any errors, their mine

You mean like confusing “their” (the possessive) with “they’re” (the conjunction for “they are”)?

🙂

Sorry … couldn’t resist.

  • Gonzo’s trying to look like a martyr, a stand-up guy. Too bad it’s a total lie.

    I know many career staff attorneys at the USDOJ, and they all say that he is uniform in his contempt and disrespect for their work. He has politicized the office from top to bottom, running dedicated public servants from their jobs to replace them with losers from barely accredited religious schools, explified by Monica Gooding from Regent Univ.

  • Unbelievable. To think that this is the legal mind Bush elevated to be the top attorney in the United States.

    Gonezales doesn’t need to be attacked, he needs to be sacked.

  • I think the problem is that Gonzales was told to make that exact kind of attack and was just waiting for the right opportunity to drop it. Unfortunately, Durbin didn’t give him the right set-up and now Gonzales looks stupid. Bush often does that same thing when he’s forced to speak off-script. He’s told a bunch of good lines and just has to fit them in the best he can, even when they’re not the right answer to the question asked. So they just hope the answer was strong enough to put the other side on the defensive and they won’t be forced to explain their lame line. In this case, Alberto failed.

  • Hey now—what was America’s reaction when ol’ Saddam used the “human shield” play?

    Isn’t Abu doing pretty much the same thing here? Congress is gunning for him—and he’s putting the whole blasted DoJ out there if front of him, warning a sitting US Senator “not to attack them?”

    Cowardice. Sheer, blatant, unmitigated cowardice. Give this man a “Patton:” Bitch-slap him a few times, and send him to the war zone.

    Back to the front with you, Gonzo!

  • Doctor Biobrain nailed it. This was a piece of script hammered out while Goner was holed up in his office getting ready for his close up. Unfortunately for this oily piece of dreck, Durbin wasn’t play acting. But as we know, this mAdmin. is great at creating its own reality, and it sucks at adjusting when events don’t fall out as planned.

    I think they’ll need to burn Goner’s chair when this over. They’ll never get the smell of brown-pants scared AG out of it.

  • I’ve taken dumps that were less offensive than Gonzales.

    Of course, I didn’t use the Constitution as toilet paper, so I’m obviously not qualified to work for this Administration’s DOJ…

  • Even the interjection of the word attack, as in “attack me” belies the entire circumstance. Once again, Bush people are reckless with their rhetoric, and I can conjecture such recklessness is deliberate. By using the term attack, Gonzo is hoping the main purpose of the hearing can be dusted up enough to gain at least a push on the matter. No, Mr. Gonzales, nobody is attacking you, nor are they there asking questions to attack you. Rather, the Honorable Senators have gathered to ask Gonzo questions of ACCOUNTABILITY.

    It seems all too often that when any of the current WH crew is asked to be accountable for themselves, they always feign some sort of attack against themselves personally. What a cowardly strategy of never being held accountable for any mistakes one may have made along the way! -Kevo

  • […] when there are attacks against the department, you’re attacking the career professionals.”

    The priviledge of attacking career professionals is *mine*, Sen Durbin, and don’t you forget it.

  • As cheap stunts go, this is ridiculous.

    Yeah, well-said.

    Can the AG seriously believe falsely accusing the Senate Minority Whip is going to help save his faltering career?

    Yeah, well, you know, it’s just the flailing of a drowning man, CB. He’s got to say something. Pulling a move like that is just trying to make it sound like he’s not the bad guy.

  • The Repubs have played this card before. Remember all of the claims in the ’04 election that the “unhinged left” merely had an “irrational hatred” of Bush. He’s trying to nail himself to a cross, but even the Republicans on the committee aren’t buying it.

  • Gonzales just needed to get a sound-bite out for Fox News and Drudge to flog. The context hardly matters, does it?

  • I’m with the good Doctor Biobrain: Gonzales response was a canned attack, but despite all those days of prep, he blew the delivery. In fact, I thought I heard a lot of rehearsed lines and retroactive logic in the little bit of testimony I caught. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s an unrepentant weasel.

  • “I suppose it was inevitable.
    If you criticize the president, you must hate the troops,
    and if you criticize Alberto Gonzales, you must hate the Justice Department.”

    And if you shit on the Constitution, and put party above country, you’re a loyal Bushie.

  • Actually, to a degree, Durbin was slagging on the Justice Department. Or, to be more precise, it seeme to me that he was slagging on all the “loyal Bushies” in the Justice Department.There are so many sycophants in the Department, who are there first and foremost because of their ass-kissiness, and Gonzales has a history of being an ass-kisser, approving of ass-kissing and putting ass-kissing above job competency, that it’s difficult to determine who wants to do the job, who CAN do the job, and who lloks at the department as one big ol’ Honeycomb Kids’ Clubhouse where they can hang their cute li’l “No Lib’rulz aloud” sign & pretend they’re pirates all day long.

    To put it in good ol’ boys terms this dope of a President can understand: If a pack of wolves is killing off your chickens, you can curse the bitch mother what raised them, but you gotta curse the whole pack, too, until/unless some wolves prove they don’t eat chicken.

  • Proving that ‘anyone’ can be an AG. Just listening to him respond one becomes totally aware that he should be on the bottom wrung of the ladder at the DOJ. I suppose that being a loyal ‘Bushie’ just assumes incompetence and disregard for the rules. They must consider themselves “special”. After all, Bush gets away with incompetence and disregard for the rules on a daily basis. One question I haven’t seen asked is: if Rove is a political adviser to the president, why is he even involved in discussions about anything with the DOJ directly? The most obvious question however is: how can the American public possibly trust anything coming from the DOJ now? Gonzales has cast a cloud of suspicion and ineptitude nation wide and still can’t see any reason he should resign…which is exactly why he should.

  • I thought it was refreshing to see a Neo-Con standing up for the masses of bureaucratic career civil servants! I guess we can add the Justice Department to the Defense Department as government agencies worthy of existing. The other funny thing is that the DOJ must be full to the brim with lawyers. I thought the GOP hated lawyers. I thought lawyers made helathcare expensive and caused companies billions of dollars by filing frivilous lawsuits.

    “Oh the times, they are a changin’ “

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