Buttercheeks, it seems, finally tired of the debate, and decided to settle the matter once and for all. Esquire, for reasons that are not immediately apparent, decided to make Buttercheeks one of the roughly 20 people invited to pontificate on The Meaning of Life. And Buttercheeks used this as his debate-ender.

He warmed up with:

So if I had to do it again, what I would not do is use the word quaint and the Geneva Conventions in the same sentence.

Dude, I think you just did.

John H. Richardson, who wrote the article for Esquire, presents it a series of stand-alone bullet points (without the bullets, though). This is what he wickedly strung together as two consecutive points:

The notion that what happened at Abu Ghraib was a result of the policies of the Bush administration I just think is totally ridiculous.

You do the best you can, looking at precedent, in trying to anticipate where the Supreme Court is going to draw the balance between the protection of civil liberties and protecting the national security, and in some cases we guessed wrong.

Hard to read that without picking up the impression that Buttercheeks is admitting that Abu Ghraib was a result of the policies of the Bush administration. But this, of course, is just Richardson being wicked.

(Al Kamen, of the Washington Post, incidentally, plays a thoroughly dishonest game with these Gonzales quotes. He runs them together like this, without any explanation:
“The notion that what happened at Abu Ghraib was a result of the policies of the Bush administration I just think is totally ridiculous,” Gonzales says. “You do the best you can, looking at precedent, in trying to anticipate where the Supreme Court is going to draw the balance between the protection of civil liberties and protecting the national security, and in some cases we guessed wrong.”)

But here’s the real money shot—Buttercheeks’ own words, without editing tricks:

We should have abandoned the idea of removing the U. S. attorneys once the Democrats took the Senate. Because at that point we could really not count on Republicans to cut off investigations or help us at all with investigations. We didn’t see that at the Department of Justice. Nor did the White House see that. Karl didn’t see it. If we could do something over again, that would be it.

If Gonzales was still a General in Bush’s army, someone would be urgently whispering in his ear: “Sir, you’re not allowed to actually admit in public that you feel the only reason you shouldn’t have done it is that you should have realized you could no longer get away with such shit.” But he’s not even a fake general any more. And Esquire wasn’t going to be whispering in his ear. Not when every journalistic instinct had them chortling with glee, and going: “Bingo!”

(2)
Esquire, by the way, didn’t let Buttercheeks get away with this blatant falsification:

All the internal investigations are over with, no finding of wrongdoing, no finding that I misled Congress.

They sicced him with an asterisk, and provided this helpful gloss:

A 2008 Department of Justice investigation was referred to a federal prosecutor and remains ongoing.

This is the former Attorney General of the United States, and he doesn’t even understand when an Department of Justice investigation is over? Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

On repudiating the Geneva conventions, here’s how Alberto remembers it would like us to remember it.

TL: And what about the “quaint notion” reference that you made about the Geneva Conventions.

Gonzales: Oh, that’s an easy one. The “quaint” reference was in a confidential memo to the president, and what I said was, “Mr. President, I think it is fair to ask whether certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions — such as a requirement that you provide athletic uniforms, commissary privileges, scientific instruments, a monthly allowance — those are all required by the Geneva Conventions to prisoners of war.” And when I said it was “quaint,” what I was saying is I believe it’s fair to ask whether or not those provisions — when you’re dealing with terrorists who do not follow the laws of war and who kill innocents indiscriminately — aren’t those provisions quaint and outdated? I didn’t mean to say that the provisions of the Geneva Conventions requiring basic humane treatment were outdated. No, I didn’t say that. What I said was certain provisions like those I just described were quaint and outdated and should be revisited. Let me make one final point, and that is I strongly support the primary objective of the Geneva Conventions, which is to ensure the humane treatment of people captured on the battlefield or civilians captured in times of war. Those are very, very important protections, and I certainly support them — as does President Bush, and he was clearly on record in that respect.

Still the same old Buttercheeks. Indulging in bald-faced lies that are effortlessly proved to be bald-faced lies. Did his Mama really teach him nothing better?

Here’s the actual content (pdf) of the “quaint notion” memo Buttercheeks wrote to President Bush in 2002:

The nature of the new war places a high premium on other factors, such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists and their sponsors in order to avoid further atrocities against American civilians, and the need to try terrorists for war crimes such as wantonly killing civilians. In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions requiring that captured enemy be afforded such things as commissary privileges, scrip (i.e., advances of monthly pay), athletic uniforms, and scientific instruments.

Even John Yoo wouldn’t be able to argue that the only part of the Geneva Conventions that Buttercheeks dismissed were the ones relating to innocuous things like “athletic uniforms, commissary privileges, scientific instruments, a monthly allowance”.

And here’s the really funny part: Buttercheeks really seems to have some memory issues. He had memory problems even back in 2002, well before he showed up on Capital Hill to repeatedly break his own previous world records for being unable to recall things under questioning.

The Geneva Conventions do not exactly require that prisoners of war must be provided “athletic uniforms” or “scientific instruments.”

Many of the provisions Gonzales labels as “quaint” simply do not exist. For example, nothing in the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War requires a detaining power to provide detainees with “athletic uniforms” or “scientific instruments.” The only (provision) which even vaguely resemble such a requirement (is) … Article 72, which provides that detention guards cannot seize mail sent to detainees which contains harmless items such as “scientific instruments” and “sports outfits.”

No halfway competent attorney could confuse “thou shalt not confiscate, if received by mail” with “thou shalt provide”. In Buttercheeks’ defense, though, Article 27 mandates that detainees must be given appropriate “[c]lothing, underwear and footwear”. Perhaps Buttercheeks considers underwear to be an athletic uniform (little is known at the present time about Buttercheeks’ althetic or exercise habits), and footwear to be a scientific instrument? (Why should he be dazed and confused only about legal matters?)

The terms of the investigation are that a special prosecutor will re-examine less than a dozen cases in which interrogators clearly exceeded even the torture-permissive guidelines of the Bush regime, looking at “whether there is enough evidence to launch a full-scale criminal investigation of current and former CIA personnel who may have broken the law in their dealings with detainees.”

Here’s Lieberman’s carefully considered comment:

I respectfully regret this decision by Attorney General Holder and fear our country will come to regret it too because an open ended criminal investigation of past CIA activity, which has already been condemned and prohibited, will have a chilling effect on the men and women agents of our intelligence community whose uninhibited bravery and skill we depend on every day to protect our homeland from the next terrorist attack.
[...]
We cannot take for granted the fact that our homeland has not been attacked since September 11, 2001. That has occurred only because of the constant vigilance and unflinching efforts by those brave individuals in our military, civilian homeland security and counterterrorism agencies, and the intelligence community. These public servants must of course live within the law but they must also be free to do their dangerous and critical jobs without worrying that years from now a future Attorney General will authorize a criminal investigation of them for behavior that a previous Attorney General concluded was authorized and legal.

They must, of course, live within the law. And when they don’t, they should face absolutely no consequences.

For the record, even Alberto Gonzales was not willing to conclude that causing a detainee to freeze to death by ordering that he be stripped and shackled to a concrete floor without blankets in the dead of winter was authorized and legal.

Joe Lieberman, though, is willing to lie that he did.

The Republicans with this dim view of the CIA include Minority Whip Jon Kyl, Jeff Sessions, Kit Bond, Orrin Hatch and John Cornyn.

These honorable gentlemen also believe that “the foremost duty of the Department is to protect Americans”. That’s funny. I could have sworn it was to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the land. At least, before and after the tenure of one Alberto “Buttercheeks” Gonzales.

(And even Buttercheeks was only one word off from my description: “trample” instead of “uphold”.)

I have no questions in my mind about her qualifications in terms of education, experience. A president is not required to nominate the most qualified person to the court. I think he’s obliged to nominate someone who is well-qualified, and I think by any measures, she is well-qualified.

Sadly, General Gonzales did not deign to share with us who he views as “the most qualified person”.

Also, I think that if he had any advisers and well-wishers, they would probably advise him to refrain from using the word “think” in close conjunction with the word “I”, at least in public.

(ThinkProgress, incidentally, views Gonzales’ condescending statement as praise rather than faint praise.)

I asked him whether he would participate in a “truth commission,” as proposed by Sen. Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), to look into alleged law-breaking by the Bush administration.

“My view has always been to be as cooperative as possible,” said Gonzales, “and that’s what I’ve been with respect to everything. As far as I’m concerned I’ve got nothing to hide and I’ll cooperate. Every time I’ve been asked to cooperate, I’ve cooperated. In terms of what happens in the future, I’m not going to comment on that, but that is what I’ve done in the past.”

We all have vivid memories of Gonzales repeatedly cooperating with House and Senate committees. By earnestly repeating, as patiently and cooperatively as anyone could wish for, the equivalent of “Senator, I do not recall!” as many times as he was asked to do so. With unflagging grace and faultless cooperation, ad infinitum.

Gonzales went further: “I think only a fool would be unconcerned about any kind of commission or investigation in this political town and in this political climate.”

That last statement is a little confusing, no doubt, since most objective observers would consider Gonzales to be a prize fool. However, Gonzales clearly considers the political climate in Washington to have changed. The good old days when you could be cheerfully unconcerned about any kind of commission or investigation are gone, alas.

GONZALES: The last thing he [former President Bush] said as he was getting off the plane — he kissed me on the forehead — and he said, “Just stay strong.” […]

HERMAN: Any tears shed on the plane by anybody?

GONZALES: By me, yeah. There were a few.

Now that Bush is a private citizen, he needs to say nullus just like the rest of us.

Because we are, after all, you know, a nation of laws.

Investigators say a former top Justice Department official made false statements to Congress and violated federal law in overseeing the agency’s civil rights division.

The accusations are included in a new report by the department’s inspector general, Glenn Fine, on Bradley Schlozman, the former acting head of the civil rights division.

Tuesday’s report is the latest of several inquiries that found senior Justice Department officials violated civil service laws under the tenure of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.
[...]
The report says Schlozman politicized and mistreated his staff and tried to punish agency employees he believed were too liberal. …
[...]
Investigators referred the case to federal prosecutors last spring, but they decided last week not to file charges against Schlozman.

The investigation, conducted with the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility, found that Schlozberg did not tell the truth to Congress when he told Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in a June 2007 hearing that he did not consider political affiliations in hiring.
[...]
Earlier inquiries by Fine’s office concluded that top Gonzales advisers discriminated against applicants for career jobs who weren’t Republican or conservative loyalists.

Of course, no one was prosecuted then either. That’s Bush justice for you.

I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror.

I would dearly love to have Buttercheeks recite a list of who some of the other casualties are.

Gonzales also asked, straight from the heart:

What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?

Other than conspiring to trample the Constitution by aiding and abetting torture and kidnapping and illegal surveillance, and denying detainees even the basic protections of the Geneva Convention, and firing U.S. attorneys for refusing to hew to Karl Rove‘s political agenda, and repeatedly lying to Congress and to us about all of the above? I guess I don’t recall.

Yesterday, they had another sloppy post about Condi Rice.

The headline reads: Report: Gonzales And Rice Appear To Have Lied To Congress About Vetting Bush’s Pre-War Uranium Claims.

But the post only talks about an apparent lie by Gonzales on Rice‘s behalf:

On January 6, 2004, then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales sent a letter to Sen. John Rockefeller (D-WV) on behalf of Condoleezza Rice that claimed the CIA had “orally cleared” the uranium claim for two of Bush’s speeches.

But in a new memo, House Oversight Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) says that he has found evidence contradicting Gonzales’ assertions…

Nowhere in the post is there any mention of any lies by Condi.

As best as I can figure out, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence asked Condi Rice to provide examples of times that the CIA had cleared references to Saddam Hussein’s attempts to purchase uranium from Africa for use in speeches. Condi Rice declined to reply directly. Alberto Gonzales replied on her behalf, and his reply does not appear to uniquely comport with the truth.

I’m not sure how that becomes a lie by Gonzales and Rice. ThinkProgress does not explain.

They also had a sloppy post about George Bush. It claims that 56 percent of respondents to a Pew poll described Bush as “incompetence”, although the numbers in the table presented obviously add up to much more than a hundred, and the table clearly says it represents not percentages but “standardized numbers out of 1,000 responses”. That 56% is actually 5.6%. Which seems to materially change the whole meaning, doesn’t it?

Both these posts, incidentally, were by Matt Corley. Maybe he needs a vacation? Or just a good night’s sleep?

*** Update, 7:35 a.m. ***

The 56% error has been suddenly corrected this morning, without any indication that the post was edited/corrected. Not exactly in the “best practices” handbook to do it that way.

*** Update #2, 7:51 a.m. ***

In the Tuesday post referred to in the first para of this post, I had written:

I can’t imagine how ThinkProgress got it wrong (ascribing Condi’s speech to Bush), but I do find it interesting that when you click on the link in their post, it just takes you to an error message (typo in the URL, don’t you know?), so you would never find yourself looking at a headline reading “National Security Advisor Speaks at Texas A&M”.

The URL didn’t work because instead of reading “http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/04/20020408-6.html” the URL had an extra bit of html code stuck on at the end.

One, I can’t imagine how that html code could have ended up there. I can’t imagine any innocent cut-and-paste that would have produced that result. (Previous two paragraphs edited at 8:03 a.m. for clarity.)

Two, this URL has also been corrected without any acknowledgment of any change.

Three, I have never before had any reason to go back and look at ThinkProgress posts and see if they were changed ex-post, and if this was acknowledged. I am extremely taken aback at the fact that when I did it now for the three posts mentioned in this post, two of the three show unacknowledged ex-post changes. Needless to say, my confidence in the integrity and credibility of the ThinkProgress blog has dropped sharply.

When right-wing blogs behave like this, liberal blogs typically (and quite rightly) express outrage. It will be interesting to see if anyone else taxes ThinkProgress with unacceptable conduct. And whether ThinkProgress itself acknowledges this criticism and responds to it.

*** Update #3, 7:59 a.m. ***

I should point out that when the error ascribing Condi’s speech to Bush was corrected, that was duly acknowledged (even if it wasn’t time-stamped).

*** Update #4, 8:35 a.m. ***
This is brilliant. Now the headline on the Gonzales-Rice post has been changed from “Report: Gonzales And Rice Appear To Have Lied To Congress About Vetting Bush’s Pre-War Uranium Claims” to “Report: Gonzales Appears To Have Lied To Congress For Rice About Vetting Bush’s Pre-War Uranium Claims“.

Once again, without acknowledgment.