As the Justice Department Turns (over a spit)

Jesus H. Christ, how freakin' stoopid does the Bush administration, and in particular his Justice Department, think we are? There will always be the 28-percenters who would be okay with George Bush eating a live baby on the fifty yard line during the Super Bowl half-time show, but what about the rest of us? These officials sound like a bunch of children telling lies to their parents. None of them are even remotely believable.

I still remember the look on Patrick Leahy's face in response to Gonzales turning himself into a human pretzel during his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 13^th. We've all seen that look from teachers in grade school whenever kids tried to give some bullshit excuse for not having their homework done. While watching him testify, I kept thinking of the scene from Oliver Stone's "JFK" in which David Ferrie (Joe Pesci) was telling his cockamamie story about a trip to Houston with "the boys" during a bad thunderstorm to go goose hunting without any guns, and Jim Garrison (Kevin Costner) said something to the effect of, "I'm sorry, Mr. Ferrie, we're going to have to detain you for further questioning. Frankly, we find your story to be not believable", to which Ferrie replies, "Really?...Which part?"

Now today, Monica Goodling admitted she broke the law with her questioning of prospective employees, but she didn't mean to. (/me bangs head on table.) Then she let this gem slip:

[Goodling] said Gonzales told her, "Let me tell you what I can remember," and "laid out his general recollection" of the process leading up to the firings -- that he believed they had all been dismissed for performance-based reasons.

Let me get this straight. The Attorney General of the United States believed that eight, Senate-confirmed United States Attorneys, who reported to him, were fired "for performance-based reasons." Ahem. Excuse me if I'm a little skeptical. We're not talking about McDonald's here (no offense to McDonald's employees). When a United States Attorney is fired, it's memorable. If you're the president of a major corporation and one of your vice presidents is fired (much less eight), you'll remember precisely why. This is no different.

What he was really telling her was, "I don't remember anything. That's my story, so you'll have lots of maneuvering room if the questions get tight. Just don't blame me or the president, and we'll hook you up with a nice cushy job at the Heritage Foundation when this blows over." It's either that, or he really is that clueless about what is happening in the department he is supposed to be running. I guess he's just praying that everyone will think he's a total idiot because that's preferable to being impeached and possibly prosecuted for federal crimes.