Alberto Gonzales: Scarecrow or Tin Man?

(Blogger ate my initial post, this will be rushed and filled with misplaced anger)

Either the Attorney General doesn't have a heart, or a brain. Regardless, it was one hell of a revealing session in the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, one of the most interesting hearings on the Hill in a long time. My busy schedule, and the over-the-shoulder tendencies of my producer, precluded me from discussing it yesterday. But it was a doozy.

First, Gonzales made the absurd claim that all of those White House speeches that claimed Democrats didn't want to eavesdrop on terrorists weren't about DEMOCRATS. No, no, they were about some other political party that Republicans were running against in 2006. The Blogger Party.

Feingold's first question - "do you know of any one in the country who opposed eavesdropping on terrorists?"

Gonzales: Sure - if you look at blogs today, there is a lot of concern about all types of eavesdropping, who don't want us eavesdropping at all.

Feingold: Do you know anyone in government who ever took that position?

Gonzales: No, but that is not what I said.

Feingold: It is a disgrace and disservice to your office and the President to have accused people on this Committee of opposing eavesdropping on terrorists.

Gonzales: I didn't have you in mind or anyone on the Committee when I referred to people who oppose eavesdropping on terrorists. Perish the thought.

Feingold: Oh, well it's nice that you didn't have us "in your mind" when making those accusations, but given that you and the President were running around the country accusing people of opposing eavesdropping on terrorists in the middle of an election, the fact that you didn't have Congressional Democrats in "mind" isn't significant. Your intent was to make people think that anyone who opposed the "TSP" did not want to eavesdrop on terrorists, even though that was false. No Democrats oppose eavesdropping on terrorists.

Gonzales: I wasn't referring to Democrats.

This is complete nonsense. There were ads made all over the country in 2006, with the support of the RNC, claiming that Democrats didn't want to eavesdrop on terrorists.



The notion that people in the White House weren't talking about Democrats in that ad, and in their many speeches before the election, but instead were referring to as-yet-unnamed bloggers, is both stupid and insulting. If we had that much power, that the White House would have to specifically do pushback on us, then we'd have 80% of the Congress by now.

Then, Gonzales claimed that he would never fire a US Attorney for political reasons, but refused to tell the Committee how many Attorneys had been purged asked to resign.

Then, Gonzales refused to allow Congress to see the order reached by the FISA court regarding the new way of treating NSA wiretapping, despite the fact that the judge in the case had no problem with Congress seeing it:

"Are you saying that you might object to the court giving us a decision that you publicly announced?" committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked. "Are we Alice in Wonderland here?"

Responding, Gonzales said "there is going to be information about operational details about how we're doing this that we want to keep confidential," he said.

They haven't even fully briefed the relevant committees. Listen to what Gonzales is saying here. Pressured by legislative oversight, the executive branch reaches a deal with the judiciary on wiretapping, claiming that they added every safeguard and condition the legislative branch wanted. BUT, they won't let them confirm that and finish the oversight job. It's practically Kafka-esque.

And finally, there's this unbelievable exchange, where Gonzales shows himself to be ignorant of Constitutional law, which for the nation's top law enforcement official is probably a bad place to be.

GONZALES: I will go back and look at it. The fact that the Constitution — again, there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is a prohibition against taking it away. But it’s never been the case, and I’m not a Supreme —

SPECTER: Now, wait a minute. Wait a minute. The constitution says you can’t take it away, except in the case of rebellion or invasion. Doesn’t that mean you have the right of habeas corpus, unless there is an invasion or rebellion?

GONZALES: I meant by that comment, the Constitution doesn’t say, “Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas.” It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended except by —

SPECTER: You may be treading on your interdiction and violating common sense, Mr. Attorney General.

GONZALES: Um.

The mind reels. So here's the deal: there's no right to habeas corpus in the Constitution. The government can't take it away unless under extreme circumstances, but it's not a right. It's a privilege, I guess. Or a grant. Or a lease.

Like I said, he's either without heart or without brain. Or, more likely, without a soul.