Alberto Gonzales Emerges From Under His Bridge:
So yesterday, the Rude Pundit was driving along the gray streets of the Northeast, the remaining ice and snow dark and filth-speckled, the cars and trucks coated in salt dust. He was listening to the radio, the local NPR station, and the show Tell Me More came on with an exclusive: an extended interview with former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. What wonders would he reveal? the Rude Pundit thought. What burdens would he unburden? Or what fuscations would obfuscate? For the next hour, Gonzales demonstrated that, when it comes to the art of self-fellatio, no one can contort his neck in quite the way that the former White House counsel can. Gonzo can gleefully gobble his own cock and smile a creepy smile at you when he comes, his semen-greased teeth glistening at you.

For what else can you say about a man who simply refuses, in any way that one might call "adult," to take responsibility for any of the fuck-ups of his tenure. Host Michel Martin tried, too gently, to get him to see that, if everyone points at your pants and shows you the shit stains back there, then you have shit yourself. To that, Gonzales would say, "Someone else shit in these pants. I just decided not to wash them before I put them on." Which is, you know, disgusting and disturbing on a whole other level.

Regarding the hospital bedside visit by him and Andrew Card to get a pre-surgical John Ashcroft to sign off on a spying program that Ashcroft's Deputy AG, James Comey, wouldn't? "I was sent there on behalf of the president of the United States. The chief of staff and the counsel of the president were - we went to the hospital on behalf of the president to make sure that General Ashcroft had this information. That's why we went to the hospital." He was there, he says, just to tell Ashcroft that congressional leaders (who were, you know, Republicans) wanted the program renewed, legality be damned.

Regarding the politicized firing of U.S. attorneys and hiring of others at the Justice Department when Gonzales was AG? "I deeply regret some of the decisions made by some of my staff in making hiring decisions. Those decisions were made without my knowledge. Certain questions asked - political questions asked of career employees should not have been asked. I condemn it. I wish I'd - I wish someone had told me that this was going on." See? He just didn't know. Poor Gonzales. Always a bridesmaid.

Most fascinating was Gonzales's reaction to AG nominee Eric Holder's simple statement that waterboarding is torture, as we have understood torture for, let's say, ever: "I think that one needs to be careful in making a blanket pronouncement like that if you don't have all the information because of the effect it may have, again, on the morale and the dedication of intelligence officials and lawyers throughout the administration."

And then, being the good ball-licking lackey he always has been, he offered, "Nonetheless, the very discussion about it is extremely discouraging. And I have talked to officials, senior officials at the CIA, for example, who tell me that agents at the CIA no longer have any interest at doing anything, anything remotely controversial, for fear that they are going to be investigated and that they have to go out and hire lawyers in order to do their job. And so, it has a very discouraging effect, and the net result of all of that is that people will not be doing what they need to be doing to gain intelligence that will help us connect the dots and protect our country from another attack."

Now there's a weaselly motherfucker desperately trying to stay out of prison now that the chance at a pardon has passed. If bad things happen, he says, it'll be because the Obama administration made Jack Bauer sad.

Here's the fuckin' deal: if, at any point, Gonzales thought what he was doing was wrong, he could have fuckin' left. He was a partner in a law firm, a Texas Supreme Court justice. He wouldn't have been out on the street. Honorable men do that. They throw themselves on their swords rather than live in disgrace. Hell, at this point, the streets should be littered with the bodies of suicides from the Bush administration.

Today there will be more snow. It will gently cover the oil and dog shit-coated remnants of the last storm. But it's there. It'll need to be cleaned up some day.