A second helping of Gonzales

Looks like you've got some 'splaining to do, Alberto!

From Patrick Leahy's office:

You spent weeks preparing for the April 19th hearing. Yet during your
testimony, in response to questions from Senators on both sides of the
aisle,
you often responded that you could not recall. By some counts
you failed
to answer more than 100 questions, by other counts more than 70,
but the most
conservative count had you failing to provide answers well over
60 times.
As a result, the Committee’s efforts to learn the truth of
why and how
these dismissals took place, and the role you and other
Department and White
House officials had in them, has been hampered.
The
questions asked by Senators should not have been a surprise. You were
alerted in letters to
you well in advance of last Thursday’s hearing.
By letter sent April 4,
you were asked to include in your written
testimony a "full and complete account
of the development of the plan to
replace Untied States Attorneys, and all the
specifics of your role in
connection with that matter." That account was
not included in your
written testimony nor in your answers to questions at the
hearing. You
were also alerted in advance of the hearing, by a letter sent
on April 13,
that you would be asked about information derived from the staff
interviews
of your senior aides. You were, nevertheless, unprepared to
answer
those questions.
We believe the Committee and our
investigation would benefit from you searching and refreshing your
recollection
and your supplementing your testimony by next Friday to provide
the answers to
the questions you could not recall last Thursday.

I've got an idea for the committee. Clearly, open-ended questions are too challenging for the Attorney General. Let's give him a multiple choice exam.

Were those US Attorneys fired for:

A. NO reason at all.

These Attorneys do, after all, serve at the "pleasure of the President" as we've heard about 10,000 times by now. So if Abu and his staff have the time, inclination and chutzpah to fuck around with, fire and defame good attorneys because of the way the wind tickles their balls in the morning, there's nothing illegal about that.

It does speak to their judgement, priorities and human decency though, and the voters should know that's how they roll in the Bush administration.

B. A GOOD reason.

There's nothing illegal about that. We're just curious what it was, though. Humor us.

B. A BAD reason.

Anyone that cares to put the pieces together about competitive districts, witch-hunts for non-existent voter fraud cases, suspicious corruption case manipulations, deleted emails, and secretly inserted Patriot Act provisions for appointing US Attorneys without Congressional Approval is starting to see what these replacements were about. And, again, there's nothing inherently illegal about it.

So just come out and say it, already.

Virginia Tech Shooter:Liberal or Conservative?

Yes, I know that I am a sick, heartless fucker for even thinking this way, but I have been trying to figure out whether the Virginia Tech shooter was a liberal or conservative.

I know it shouldn't really matter. He was mentally ill, that's the main thing. And committed a heinous act that created devastating pain for 33 sets of families, friends and communties.

But still. I want to know. That's just how my brain has become wired over the last dozen years or so. Call it political polarization, call pop psychologizing, say that I am obsessed, but I really don't feel like I can get a grip on how someone's mind functions these days, without knowing where they fall in some basic questions.

Like whether they believe in evolution or creationism. Support or oppose the Iraq war. Are indifferent to or disgusted by homosexuals. Are pro-choice or anti-abortion. Side with corporations or people. Believe in punishing or helping others. Interested in cooperation or domination.

And, yeah, I do judge people --- negatively --- when they disagree with me on these issues. Who doesn't?

Usually, it's pretty easy to pick out the wingers from the moonbats, but Cho Seung-hui is kind of a tough one to label. Here's what I know about him, and where I think it puts him on the Liberal/Conservative spectrum.

Liberal Traits:
A minority
An English Major
Writes plays
Hates Rich Kids

Conservative Traits
Korean
A gun nut
A Religious Fanatic
Hates Debauchery (aka Fun)

All in all, it seems pretty much balanced. So I guess the deciding factor would have to be his actions.

That's an easy one.

A true liberal would have dealt with his hurt and disappointment by banding together with other similarly afflicted victims to whine and petition for recognition and special treatment. Culminating, perhaps, in some sort of march or sing-in in front of the Student Union.

A sullen, uncommunicative, Jesus-obsessed loser who blames all the troubles in the world on another group of people, then remorselessly kills those people as if they were not even human?

That's a conservative.

Let's talk about irresponsibility, Mr. Cheney

I just read this load of garbage that our gravel-voiced, Vice-Mumbler delivered on CBS News' Face the Nation yesterday.

I think it's important they know where we stand. And the fact of the matter is I do believe that the positions that the Democratic leaders have taken and -- to a large extent now are irresponsible. I mean, Harry Reid last fall said -- is after the November elections -- that he would not support an effort to cut off funding for the troops. Then he changed that position to one in which he would support an effort to cut off funding for the troops, place limitations on--on the funding, and now he's to the point where he's saying he's going to support legislation that cuts the whole funding for the troops. He's done a complete 180 from where he was in five months. I think that is irresponsible. I think you cannot make the basic fundamental decisions that have to be made with respect to the nation's security, given everything that's at stake in the war on terror, and what we're doing in Iraq, and with the 140,000 American troops in the field in Iraq and with the 140,000 American troops in the field in Iraq in combat every day, and call that kind of--of rapid changes in position anything other than irresponsible.

For the "R-word" to even come from your blood-stained lips is laughable under any circumstances. You've been the dirty, reeking, radioactive power-source driving an administration which has mechanically worked to divert any and all responsibility from itself for its blunders (9-11, Katrina), crimes (Valerie Plame's outing), corruption (DoJ firings, Iraq Reconstruction) and for those actions which combined all those together in a massive festering ball of corrupt, blundering criminality (Iraq).

To avoid ever taking responsibilty, your administration has let underlings take the blame (poor little Scooter), smeared formerly loyal underlings (Richard Clarke) and systematically hid the evidence (Karl Rove's missing emails) and lied, with a straight face about it all.

So let's drop the charade about who's responsible, okay?

Because in this case, you really don't want to go there.

Let me put it to you in an analogy that you will understand:DUIs.

You and your girlfriend, W, have been drunk driving for six years now, swerving all over the road, through yards and creating quite the trail of death and destruction in your wake. The rest of the country, the ones that actually own the car, have been begging you to stop, to pull over, to sober up or at the very least try to keep the car between the lines. You've refused, so we've decided to stop paying for gas.

So tell me now, Dick. Who's the irresponsible one?