Gonzales Has No Shame, So Shame Miers (Part of the Positive Politics of Shame Series):
Yesterday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left the Rude Pundit wanting to make Gonzales run pantsless through fetid streets of DC, with citizen after citizen slapping his bare ass, pointing at his tiny dick and laughing, until that quiescent fucker, with his calm, smug little smirk, collapsed by the reflecting pool, with all the tourists pointing and laughing at him. From then on, all anyone would think of when they saw Alberto Gonzales is how his little cock twitched to life whenever he was smacked.

Throughout the whole ordeal (and by "ordeal," the Rude Pundit means for America), Gonzales sat there, implacable, the look of a man who knows his back is gotten, that all of this is just like a pornographic degradation fantasy, where George W. Bush looks on approvingly while Patrick Leahy and Arlen Specter try to make him scream through his ball gag as they whip his balls, Gonzales serene knowing that Bush will let him masturbate if he's quiet. In that hearing room, Alberto Gonzales looked like he had a secret hard-on under his table, and, tee-hee, no one knew it but him.

Look at him in his exchange with Chuck Schumer over whether the President ordered him to stick his finger in John Ashcroft's gallbladder surgery incision to get approval for more domestic spying. Look at how he gleefully refuses to answer, only to repeat "We were there on behalf of the President of the United States," getting off on pissing off Schumer. Josh Marshall's right when he says, "It is quite literally contempt of Congress," and he's also right when he titles his post, "Gonzales to Schumer: Blow Me." Of course, this is Gonzales's modus operandi. But, then again, the default position for anyone in the Bush administration is "asshole."

And as disconcerting was his ability to lie without even a bead of sweat developing on his forehead, perhaps confirming his status as an automaton or, like so many others, as one who has sold his soul to Dick Cheney, Gonzales was even more disturbing when he said that he had to check with the White House about whether or not he could answer a question. That's right. The Attorney Fuckin' General, the alleged chief law enforcer in the land, has to see if he has permission to say whether or not Bush told him to annoy Ashcroft (and, again, goddamn them all for making us feel even an ounce of sympathy for John "Cover Those Tits" Ashcroft). Can anyone come up with a reason not to impeach Gonzales?

In the face of such shameful shamelessness, it's time to make the Bush administration sit on the whoopee cushion of justice. Yes, John Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee are playing a great game of chicken, but the ones who win the game are the ones who accept that, after they gun the engine, they're gonna crash. In order to shame the Bush administration properly, it's time to skip over the niceties of the process (we prepare the contempt citation, you defy it, we submit the contempt citation, you claim immunity and block investigation, etc.) and proceed directly to the end of the game, where there's a big fuckin' crash or someone goes into the ditch.

Much has already been written about inherent contempt, that Congress can have someone arrested and brought to Congress to face trial. It will as directly as possible provoke the constitutional crisis we need. It is the first step to shaming the Bush administration, something that is seemingly impossible to do.

And the key to that first step is Harriet Miers in chains, cuffed and frog-marched before the public. That's right: beat up the old lady (yeah, yeah, late-middle-aged, whatever). First of all, Harriet Miers ain't a sympathetic figure. In the White House, she was as incompetent as they come, a glorified clerical assistant. Outside the White House, where she was far more effective as a lawyer, she was always defending major corporations. The right hates her; the left doesn't give a shit. Drag her out of her office, fuckin' extraordinary rendition her ass from Texas to DC, hooded and everything, showing her what a motherfucking subpoena means. Try her, jail her, make Bush have to pardon her.

Oh, you may say, Rude Pundit, this will have the exact opposite effect - it will embolden the Bush administration, make them say Congress is out of control, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, but the real message it sends is this: if the Congress is willing to do this to poor Harriet Miers, what do you think is waiting for Karl Rove?

More tomorrow on the steps to shame.