We can't recall exactly what it was that he did

That was good for the country. Nothing comes to mind. We can't recall.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- under whose tenure the Justice Department often appeared to take its orders from the White House political office -- sat down with the Wall Street Journal in an effort to clear his name. But we're guessing he did himself more harm than good.

Gonzo appeared genuinely unable to grapple with why he might be unpopular. "What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?" he asked.

He doesn't recall? Let's help him remember:

Quibbling with the Constitution and the right of Habeas Corpus.

Dragging his heels about sharing info on the anthrax attacks.

Harassing Ashcroft as he was recovering in the hospital from gall bladder surgery, trying to make him sign off on warrantless wiretapping.

Perverting the judicial system and FISA, and demanding that judges do what the president wants.

Lying to Congress. As Attorney General. LYING to the nation. Lying about the firing of the US attorneys.



Caging voters.

Going down to Gitmo and WATCHING an interrogation or two.

Quibbling about the meaning of the word torture and redefining torture so it no longer means torture even though it is just because Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld liked torture. (And those lawyers and doctors who helped establish torture techniques? We want their names.) And no one has asked the question WHY?



Being a total toadie for Georgie Bush. Surrounding himself with toadie minions, zealots intent on bringing the US a theocracy, and loyal bushies.



Being thrown under the bus and thinking we should feel sorry for him.



Blaming everybody else.

Being a toadie sucks when you're facing a war crimes tribunal, doesn't it, Abu?

crossposted at American Street

I am so proud of our students

To see them stand up against this administration:

This evening, hundreds of protestors — mostly students — “converged on the steps of the Washington University Music Building” to demonstrate against former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, who was delivering a speech hosted by the College Republicans. Gonzales agreed to answer only pre-approved questions and closed the talk to the press.

Oh really?

Karl Rove:

"The United States has nothing to apologize in its conduct in the world."

Oh, I beg to differ.

Torture?

We don't do torture.



We just call it by a different name and that gives the Bush administration deniability. Via Digby at Hullabaloo, the New York Times:

When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.

Later that year, as Congress moved toward outlawing “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment, the Justice Department issued another secret opinion, one most lawmakers did not know existed, current and former officials said. The Justice Department document declared that none of the C.I.A. interrogation methods violated that standard.

The classified opinions, never previously disclosed, are a hidden legacy of President Bush’s second term and Mr. Gonzales’s tenure at the Justice Department, where he moved quickly to align it with the White House after a 2004 rebellion by staff lawyers that had thrown policies on surveillance and detention into turmoil.

Why on earth did they want to use torture in the first place? Besides getting off on it, I mean. It doesn't work, it is the coward's way to a solution, and it loses us the moral high ground. Why did they do it?

Abu Gonzales suddenly decides to retire

Rather than find out what Georgie has planned for his legacy...