"An unbiased assessment of the facts will show that Judge Gonzales, while holding high public office during a time of great peril, worked to help maintain the safety and security of the American people and acted always with the intent and commitment to honor the rule of law."
In the interests of accuracy, we note that Gonzales has not yet been charged with any crime and champion his right to the best legal help he can find. That’s The American Way. And the least we can do for “the people’s lawyer.”
Checkbooks at the ready? After all, don’t we all owe poor Al our support in his time of need?
Lest we forget, Gonzales toiled for years in the loyal service of George W. Bush. He was Bush’s lawyer when Dubya was governor of Texas. The two of them spent a lot of time – some say up to five minutes per case – reviewing death sentences before they were carried out. He was rewarded with an appointment to the Texas Supreme Court.
When the governor became the president, what choice could have been more visionary than Al as White House Counsel? In that role, our former AG distinguished himself as the conveyor belt and chief rubber-stamp of recommendations from high-level Bush appointees in the Department of Justice to justify torture and the suspension of habeas corpus.
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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