Seemingly content with letting the crooked Executive Branch remain intact, Congress tore into Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the Hill today, as the Senate Judiciary Committee accused the AG of knowingly misleading them.
Bloomberg reports:
"Lawmakers voiced incredulity at Gonzales's answers to questions about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and the description of a visit he made as White House counsel to a hospitalized Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004. Gonzales was seeking Ashcroft's reauthorization of Bush administration terrorist intelligence activities.
Several senators cautioned Gonzales to carefully review the transcript of his answers to make sure he was testifying truthfully. "Your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable," said Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel’s ranking Republican.
Well no shit.
And the New York Times reports:
Mr. Specter has accused Mr. Gonzales before of dodging questions, and he did so again today. At one point, the senator said, "I see it’s hopeless." At another point, he said acidly, "Let’s see if somewhere, somehow we can find a question that you’ll answer."
The liberal blogosphere is all aflutter today, celebrating the lashing both Democrat and Republican senators gave Gonzales. And in all honesty, I’ve seen enough of both houses of Congress talking out of their asses over the past few weeks. Iraq Withdrawal? Denied. Impeachment? Considered and withdrawn. Contempt charges for any number of Justice Dept. or White House officials who have refused to testify? Nope. Days of Libby’s sentence served? Zero.
Normally I alert you to congressional actions that I am naive enough to believe may bring about some degree of change. But today I’m just exhausted. Why should I believe that today will be any different from yesterday? Why should I think that just because several GOP senators have finally seen the light regarding our criminal Attorney General that he will be removed from office or at least held accountable for his numerous criminal acts?
Next to the President, the Attorney General is one of the highest-ranking members of government charged with upholding the Constitution. Bush and Gonzales together have done nothing but desecrate all the values for which our nation stands, bending rules left and right to accommodate their, and their friends’, criminal habits.
Until Congress, all of it, begins to take its congressional role seriously, I don’t want to hear about anymore supposed no-confidence votes or considerations on impeachment or hearings that go nowhere.
PICK ONE. Get Cheney, Gonzales, Libby, any one of them. But see your actions all the way through. Lobby around one thing at a time, one issue or agenda or trial at a time, and get that accomplished. I can’t listen to the radio or watch cable news without hearing about another bill, another amendment, another senator switching his or her allegience this way or the other. Until you get something accomplished, all of you, I don’t want to hear about it anymore.
It breaks my heart to say this because I vote in every congressional election and contribute to congressional campaigns and defend this Congress and watch C-SPAN. But enough is enough, you know? I’ve chided people for calling this a do-nothing Congress, but I’m starting to think I’ve been the one in the wrong.
"I have never been one to quit."
-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, 7/24/2007