1115.org

(1) If You Scrunch Up Your Eyes Just So
General Gonzales rides again. He’s rolled up his sleeves, and he’s been practicing his best put-you-in-your-place strut for a few weeks now. Those journalists they cannot suborn and subvert to The Cause, they are now fixing to prosecute (and presumably also to otherwise destroy?). A little journalist destruction goes a long way in The War, I’m sure.

When he scrunches up his eyes, and squints just so (I guess they are now running obligatory squinting classes over at the White House; presumably President Bush is still the undisputed champion), this is what the good general sees:

The federal government appears to have the authority to prosecute journalists or newspapers for publishing classified information, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Sunday.

“There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility,” Gonzales said told ABC’s “This Week,” when asked if the government could prosecute journalists for publishing classified information.

(Note to self: never show Gonzales a Rorschach blot; waste of time; all he’ll see is justifications for negating civil liberties or freedom of the press. And proof that the war on Iraq was necessary, and that we’re winning.)

(2) Now You See It, Now You Don’t
Gen. Gonzales went on to say:

“We are engaged now in an investigation about what would be the appropriate course of action in that particular case (NSA the first), so I’m not going to talk about it specifically,” Gonzales said.

No, of course not. I’m just going to say exactly what it suits my purposes to say, and then I’m going to hide behind the well-worn ”ongoing investigation” veil. So what if Scott McClellan used it every week? It still has a few miles left on it.

So he gives us a hint of nipple here, a flash of thong-clad ass there. And that nut hugger pouch is shaking wildly as he gyrates with feeling. (Yes, the image of Gonzales doing a Foxy Frenchman is inserted here for the express purpose of giving you nightmares, regardless of gender. So that when you wake up with a cold shiver, you can then sit up in bed and worry your ass off.)

(3) Did he Just Show Us What He Wasn’t Supposed To?

“But as we do in every case, it’s a case-by-case evaluation about what the evidence shows us, our interpretation of the law…” he said.

Our interpretation of the law changes with every case? He said that, right? In black and white? Can we prosecute him for legal obscenity? Surely, that offends community standards almost everywhere?

(4) One More Unintentional Flash?
He was just off his game on Sunday, I imagine:

Gonzales also was asked about a report last week that the government was reviewing the phone records of U.S. journalists without their knowledge.

Two ABC News reporters said on a network Web site that a top federal law enforcement official told ABC the government was tracking phone numbers that the journalists were dialing in a bid to identify confidential sources.

“I think there’s misunderstanding about these activities. … We don’t engage in domestic-to-domestic surveillance without a court order,” Gonzales said.

He just defined tracking calling records as “surveillance”. The Attorney General of the United States. So if the USA Today story is true – and I insist that there’s no evidence it’s not, government-licensed denials by Bellsouth and Verizon notwithstanding – then the government did indeed engage in “domestic surveillance without a court order”.

Stand by for an episode of future fast-talking by the good General. Presumably he also gets taken to the woodshed by President Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove (not necessarily in that order), but that may not happen on camera, more’s the pity. The way Big Brother’s watching us, it’s only fair that we get to watch back.

(5) Has Anyone Checked His Academic Records?

“I will say that I understand very much the role that the press plays in our society, the protection under the First Amendment we want to promote and respect, the right of the press. But it can’t be the case that that right trumps over the right that Americans would like to see, the ability of the federal government to go after criminal activity,” he said.

What’s with leading administration warriors (in the War on Terror) making repeated statements that they understand the constitutional amendments that guarantee civil liberties and freedom of the press, and other things that organizations like the ACLU perversely hold dear?

First we had Gen. Hayden (a real General) on the Fourth Amendment. Now we have Gen. Gonzales (a fake General) on the First. (Is there any chance he might be a fake lawyer, too?) Who’s going to top that, President Bush holding forth on the right to arm bears?

To answer my own question (“what’s with”, not “is there any chance” or “who’s going to top that”), I can only assume it’s a case of that which you wish to destroy you must first understand.

How can this guy be a real lawyer (Gonzales, not Bush or Hayden)? He’s actually standing up there in front of the American public, wearing his Attorney General hat, and going: “I impute that Americans would like to see the federal government go after criminal activity however we care to define it; I hereby declare that to be a “right”; and I offer you my professional judgement (from the Attorney General bully pulpit) that this arbitrarily declared imputed right trumps the constitutional right enshrined in the First Amendment.”

That is so totally laughable that it doesn’t even deserve a serious rebuttal. So we’ll keep this perfectly non-serious. There’s a right that Gonzales guesses Americans would like to see. Not even an actual right that Americans have, just a right they would maybe like to see, a possible potential right. And it’s a subjective right, in Gonzales’s mind, not an objective right, written into law and upheld by the courts. And Attorney General Gonzales thinks (although the evidence is increasingly that this word may not strictly apply to the thought processes of Alberto Gonzales) that this possibly potential subjective right trumps the actual objective right enshrined in the First Amendment?

What’s next? We no longer hold these truths to be self-evident? Or a whole slew of constitutional wrongs to trump our constitutional rights?

And this is the man that President Bush deemed – and still deems – to be the most qualified person to hold the post of Attorney General of the United States of America?

That is as laughable as Harriet Miers’ candidacy for Supreme Court justice. Maybe even more laughable, actually, which truly boggles the mind. (Or did Bush make him A.G. because he was the only crony available whose initials are A.G.?)

This administration is certainly a barrel of laughs, especially when it comes to legal matters. So why aren’t you laughing? You don’t think they’re watching?