I'm sure that everyone has heard by now, Alberto Gonzales is resigning. He'll be headed off to "spend time with his family" sometime mid-September...'bout the same time that Gen. Patreus is doling out bits of information re: the long lauded Progress Report discussing how the Surge is going.
But as I sat and scanned the news errr...CNN last night at 9 ball, I'd noticed something interestingly ubiquitous...everything else was being covered but the AG's departure. Oh...and this thing about how bin Laden almost sorta got caught only Tommy Franks wouldn't give up the troops to do the job right.
Sure there was the momentary clip mentioning it. But that was really about it.
If I hadn't been paying close attention, I'd have never noticed that the guy who helped make it more difficult for diplomats and soldiers to demand the same privileges found under Geneva, the very guy who managed to fire a whole bunch of US Attorneys without ever really knowing why he fired them, the same guy who tried to bully his ailing predecessor into approving a domestic spying program that everyone and their assistant knew wasn't even close to legal, the guy who in one meeting triggered a near mutiny amongst the higher level DOJ officials was going to be leaving the DOJ...for good.
What did get played last night was Michael Vick. Also there's a lady missing in NJ. Additionally, Osama bin Laden was "almost" caught...back in 2002. Except it seems that well...Iraq kinda sorta got in the way of the DoD actually doing the job that it was supposed to do--catch bin Laden. Seems that Tommy Franks was--well...ummm...busy:
When General Franks refused to send troops into Tora Bora, he was already in the early stages of planning for the next war in Iraq.
But we knew that. 'Course the Newsweek report came out yesterday...while AG Gonzales was y'know...resigning.
So Gonzales resigned and then scrolled off the news cycle...quicker than the Roadrunner.
And the piece about the new report discussing bin Laden? Really...I turned my head and there it was.
I turned my head again? Poof...gone.
I waited for it to come back through the cycle. I don't recall seeing it again. But that's not to say it didn't show up while I was shooting pool.
Cut to C-Span's Washington Journal this morning...but please, don't get me started on the people who think they know facts (like the guy who swears that there's never been a lawyer president before say...Clinton. Hullo? Lincoln, anyone? Adams? Both lawyers <sigh>) and make my brain hurt as they insist that:
- Janet Reno murdered those people down in Waco
- No investigations ever happened re: Waco while Reno was in office
- Reno was personally in charge of the whole Waco tragedy
all in an effort to distract and claim that AG Gonzales isn't nearly as bad as anything those hate mongering Liberals could ever come up with.
At which point, I remember that my radio has an on/off switch...right after I shout at the radio that Reno'd been officially in office for less than a month when all hell broke loose down there, that there were numerous investigations, that there was a Special Investigator...that...that...that (oh nevermind...radio's don't answer back in reality.)
Oh...and someone almost forgot--It's Bill Clinton's fault that Larry Craig's in trouble for well...you know. Free Will had nothing to do with it.
Distractions upon distractions. Shadows within shadows. And then toss in a few red, meaty herrings to get the crowds a-roaring.
This is a multi-faceted puzzle we've got on our hands. Beware the distraction that sparkles so shiny over here...cause there's something else going on over there.