All this effort was not without its reward. Al got nominated and confirmed as our attorney general. As “the people’s lawyer,” Al outsourced to inexperienced ideologues the recruitment and screening of prospective career DOJ officers, presided over the outstanding legal scholarship used to justify warrantless snooping on phone calls and emails, trashing the Constitution’s checks and balances, continued unlimited expansion of executive power, and the still unexplained firings of nine US Attorneys.

Al had a problem, however: His memory. In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, his incantation, “I can’t recall,” might as well have been a pre-recorded announcement.

Al’s current predicament reminds me of a 1932 depression-era song, a plea from a once high-and-mighty magnate, now fallen on to hard times, “standing in line just waiting for bread.”

The lyrics were eerily prescient:

Once I built a railroad, I made it run,

Made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad, now it's done.

Brother, can you spare a dime?”

For more from this writer, go to:

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BILL FISHER   

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