Gonzo Journalism

Like 11 million other Americans, helmet-haired amnesiac, Alberto Gonzales is looking for a job.

But he has a little situation, see, that makes it much more difficult -- the economy, being one... oh and "ongoing investigations" being another.

It takes a very special man to be able to release loose stools all over the Constitution on command, and the fact that he is neither recognized nor appreciated for this bit of virtuosity, frustrates him. The disgraced, former Attorney General of the United States is really just a tender-hearted, war casualty.

In a range of interviews for his I Need A Job Tour, kicked-off with NPR's Michelle Martin, Gonzales dismisses the torture thing, the firing thing, and the warrantless wiretapping thing, as totally blown out of proportion. On Tuesday, he told CNN's Campbell Brown: "we did a tremendous job... and so many people are focused on the little negatives that occurred."

The plan hatched by Gonzo and Turd Blossom that lead to the politically-motivated firing of nine U.S. attorneys? Nonsense. They sucked at their jobs. The visit to pressure his predecessor, Songbird Ashcroft, into reauthorizing the domestic surveillance program -- while Ashcroft lay on a hospital bed, seriously ill after emergency gall bladder surgery? Waaay overblown. Contrary to first-hand accounts, the man was totally fine!

And so on.

All he's looking for is some high-paid, do-nothing consultant position in the private sector as thanks for years of unimpeachable service. And why not? So many cronies before him fell upwards. But now, thanks to the economy, he has to go on the teevee and shill for himself. Where's the dignity in that?

[TPM]

Alberto Gonzales, "Casualty" of the War on Terror?

As we stand on the eve of president-elect Barack Obama's inauguration, there has been a lot of articles taking a look back at key members of the outgoing Bush Administration.  This brought to mind a recent Wall Street Journal interview with former United States Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, where he says this about the loss of his position some 16 months ago:

What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?. . . for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror. 

I had to re-read the last sentence twice before I could close my gaping mouth.  Is it possible Mr. Gonzales doesn't know the meaning of the word "casualty"?  A quick check with The Cambridge Dictionary of American English delivers this entry for the word:

casualty /ˈkæʒuəlti/ noun [C]
a person hurt or killed in a war or other event, or something harmed or destroyed by an event

Assuming that Gonzales — a Harvard Law School alum — knows exactly what "casualty" means, I can only conclude that he equates the loss of his job and professional reputation with the loss of life suffered by thousands of American, Iraqi, and Afghani men and women — many of them innocent civilians — as a result of the United States' War on Terror.  

Whatever the verdict is on Gonzales' authorization of interrogation tactics such as waterboarding, or his efforts to reauthorize a secret government eavesdropping initiative, or his office's dismissal of nine U.S. Attorneys nation-wide who refused to use their positions to advance the power of the Republican party — the fact that Alberto Gonzales could equate the loss of his professional reputation, something which even he admits he had a hand in bringing about, with the losses suffered by those who lost their lives, loved ones, families, worlds — points to an audacity and tone-deafness that insults even Marie Antoinette's mythical insularity.

(hat tip: folks at Obsidian Wings)