Gonzales’ big day

April 19, 2007

About a half-hour ago, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), referring to a November 2006 meeting of top Justice Department officials, asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about the decision to purge the now-fired U.S. Attorneys. Gonzales said, “I don’t recall that the decision was made at that meeting.”

Leahy, looking incredulous, asked if Gonzales remembered deciding to fire the prosecutors. The AG, annoyed, said, “I remember making the decision.” When, Leahy asked. “I don’t recall,” Gonzales said. After a glare that lasted several seconds, Leahy told Gonzales, “We’ll get back to this. Count on it.”

It’s been that kind of morning for the Attorney General.

For all the talk about today’s hearing being a make-or-break moment for Gonzales, the morning session hasn’t been kind to the embattled, scandal-plagued AG. Even Ranking Member Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) seems to be running low on patience.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) said today that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’ opening testimony continued “a pattern of not being candid.” Specter proceeded to ask the Attorney General to resolve his contradictory statements, noting that he should be able to answer them since he has spent weeks preparing.

Gonzales interjected, “I prepare for every hearing, Senator.” A livid Specter responded, “Do you prepare for all your press conferences? Were you prepared for the press conference where you said there weren’t any discussions involving you?”

Gonzales, put on the defensive, conceded, “Senator, I already said I misspoke. It was my mistake.” When Specter pressed about the specific question of whether he prepares for press conferences, Gonzales said “we do take time to try to prepare for the press conference.”

“Let’s move on,” Specter said. “I don’t think you’re not going to win a debate about your preparation, frankly.”

Specter has been reluctant to call for Gonzales’ ouster, but at this rate, Snarlin’ Arlen seems to be getting closer to his limit.

There will be plenty more to say about the hearing later today (and probably tomorrow), but Paul Kiel has posted a series of YouTube clips that readers may want to check out from this morning’s exchanges.

* Gonzales had some revealing comments on David Iglesias’ firing, including discussions he had with Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Karl Rove.

* Kennedy pressed Gonzales on evaluations of the various U.S. Attorneys. Gonzales sidestepped the issue in an awkward way, suggesting that assistant U.S. attorneys in the offices are really the ones who handle the cases.

* Gonzales still can’t keep his story straight on why Bud Cummins needed to be fired in Arkansas.

* And for a purge based on alleged performance, it’s odd that Gonzales never bothered to look at the U.S. Attorneys’ record of performance.

Stay tuned.

I’ve been listening to it on streaming video and have been amazed at, generally, how calm everybody was.

  • This hearing it sooooooo entertaining! Even the most kool-aid drinking Goose-steppers are cool at best. I wonder what Senator Domenici is doing today? Warming up for a chat with the ethics comittee perhaps?

    Gonzo sounds like a total fool and I am only hoping he gets fed up and turns on Bush and Rove! A girl can dream!

    My favorite moment so far? That would be then Big Al suggested the Senators balme him and not the whole department as that reflects poorly on the career civil servants. Leahy (I think) called Al out on the carpet and said that was liek saying that anyone who disagreed with the President on the war was blaming the soldiers! Totally PRICELESS!

    Can you say conflagration? I thought you could!

  • I made the mistake of tuning in during Orrin Hatch’s disgusting display…

    “So, Mr. Attorney General, is it true that you iron your own shirts?” “That’s fantastic.”
    “Now about the coffee station in your office, is it true you decided to spring for the half and half for the staff yourself rather than use the government issue non-dairy creamer?” “You soud like a terrific boss.”

    Ugh. It was just about that bad.

  • Gonzales had some revealing comments on David Iglesias’ firing, including discussions he had with Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) and Karl Rove

    I still can’t understand how they can say with a straight face that that there weren’t any political considerations but yet they had discussions with Karl Rove. Isn’t that Rove’s entire function?

  • By the time they broke for lunch, it seemed like the more Gonzales spoke, the angrier the Senators got. I guess they are tired of hearing nonsense.

    Among my favorites, the way he definitely remembers making the decision, but has no memory of where or when he made it, and apparently no memory at all of the meeting at which, according to others, the decision was made. Apparently, he regularly makes decisions while floating in a cloud, or something, so it doesn’t seem odd to him that he remembers the decision, but nothing about the surroundings.

    I was also amused by the contention, during the discussion of whether or not he lied to Pryor, that he’s always been against the idea of using the ‘no Senate confirmation’ appointments, but at the same time he strongly says he was in favor of changing the law to make it possible. He wanted the power, but didn’t want to use it?

    On the questions about whether he did various things like following up on assignments, reading reports, etc. that you would expect a competent manager to do, Gonzales seems to be vying with The Office‘s Michael for most clueless supervisor in history.

  • I’m praying that all of this drama is just the prelude for a mass of indictments to come for perjury, lying to Congress, obstruction of justice, the whole chalupa. If we can’t take AG AG down with all this going against him, we’re in even worse trouble than we all figured.

  • Watching the hearing, the most striking point is how over his head Gonzales is in the A.G.’s job. Even if you accept everything he says at face value, the man is horrifically bad at his job.

  • “I still can’t understand how they can say with a straight face that that there weren’t any political considerations but yet they had discussions with Karl Rove. Isn’t that Rove’s entire function?”

    Actually, that is a very good point. Rove was ‘demoted’ to a strictly political position in the Bush White House back in April 2006 (the policy side of his duties were removed by the WH so he could focus on the upcoming election). Plenty of articles on that. That was his sole role at the time of this crap. So this probably would be a valid question for Abu (and others).

  • How are you guys watching the hearing? There is nothing on CNN or CSPAN, not even streaming video on the CSPAN website. Can somebody post a link?

    Thanks.

  • Shouldn’t the nation’s top law enforcement official NOT be a snivelling weasel?

    Or is that just a quaint notion?

  • Psst! Al, use this one, I’ve had great success with it:

    Reports that say that something hasn’t happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don’t know we don’t know.

  • And if they figure it out before you’ve made your escape lay this one on them:

    There’s another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn’t exist.

    They’re Gold, I tell ya. Gold.

  • Hey, Tom “Batshit Crazy” Colburn just asked for Gonzon to resign! That must have caused Hot Karl rove to reach for the Pepto!

  • Don’t know why anyone would get excited about Old Spectral sounding harsh. During Roberts’ confirmation hearings, he also sounded like he’d defend Roe vs Wade with his dying breath before executing the perfect 180° pirouette. And, wasn’t it Old Spectral (or his office, but the captain of the ship, etc) who slipped in the damned provision into the damned Parrot Act in the first place?

  • thank goodness i just had to do grunt-level paperwork today because it enabled me to listen in to so much of the testimony. what crazy show. here’s something that no one’s made much of yet, but which i think defines the one difference between the nixon white house and the bush white house. during the watergate hearing, the white house functionaries sneered, like they were disgusted at being questioned by such base creatures as senators, while bush functionaries smirk, as if they couldn’t give a damn, don’t think anything can be done to them, and don’t care if anyone tries. the former were bullies, the latter are smart-asses in the back of the classroom. unsurprisingly, these attitudes are direct reflections of their respective presidents.

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