I started writing this three weeks ago, after I had received a lot of emails asking how Alberto Gonzales can keep his job in the wake of the Attorney purge scandal, and his subsequent bout with Alzheimers before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Since then it’s only gotten more ridiculous.
I too wonder how he can still be there – And while I have no answers that make sense, I can only say:
Because he will not leave. He is simply a Bad Houseguest.
It’s like the neighbor from down the street who you were politely friendly to years ago.
Now you know what a self centered prick he is, but it’s too late: He shows up unannounced at all hours, completely clueless about your world at that moment; spews unsolicited ‘tourettes-like’ opinions about everything; makes uncomfortable, racist comments; moves your shit around for no other reason than to fidget; takes a stinky dump; and makes your kids hide out in their rooms.
You cringe the whole time. And you can’t be more obvious about wanting him out: The door is open, he is being asked to leave, and yet he tells us he will not go.
But for ‘Bushies’ this is nothing new - look at others who were discredited and eventually had no option but to leave.
Memorable Bad Houseguests include Brownie, from the Katrina disaster. Sure, he went down fast, but only after a few days of ‘Heckuva job;” …Donald ‘You go to war with the Army you have’ Rumsfeld, who overstayed his welcome for three years while The Boy King denied his glaring incompetence. And who could forget the original Bad Houseguest, Tom Delay.
Even today, the news is rife with Bad Houseguests having nothing in common besides being jesters in the court of Bush. Look at Paul Wolfowitz, ideological architect and cheerleader for the Iraq invasion (how’s that going?) and head of the World Bank (how did that happen again?).
In the wake of letters from the European (EU) Parliament and thousands of World Bank employees imploring him to leave, a ruling from the World Bank board that he broke bank rules and represented a conflict of interest, and a statement from Germany that he was not welcome to attend a World Bank forum on Africa next week in Berlin…He insists he will stay, but change his operating procedures.
In both the Gonzales and Wolfowitz cases the Decider Boy has chimed in with his vote of confidence, just as he did with Brownie and Rummy.
The principal trait all these Bad Houseguests have in common (besides denial) is, simply arrogance, or more bluntly, Balls. It’s a characteristic of a ‘loyal bushie’ regardless of position, race, or sex. Look at Condi Rice, she has balls so big she needs Dick Cheney to hump them around:
Last month the House Intelligence Committee voted to Subpoena her to testify on several issues regarding the deceptive leadup to the Iraq war. The subpoena was in response to a number of formal requests for information which were completely ignored in the first place.
What was her reaction to the subpoena? She ignored it, as she ignored the previous letters requesting information.
While they all have giantly expanded Cojones, there is one defining difference with the current Bad Houseguest. While the sagas of Rummy, Brownie, Cunningham were about incompetence, deception, and ethics, they managed to keep them personal downfalls. But think about the ugliness and deceit Gonzales is involved in, or aware of.
As one example, this week former deputy Attorney General, James B. Comey, testified to congress about a startling crisis in March 2004 when Attorney General John Ashcroft, Director Robert S. Mueller III of the F.B.I. and other senior Justice Department aides all threatened to resign because of unease with the legality of Bush’s NSA wiretapping program.
At the time, Comey was acting Attorney General because Ashcroft was laid up in the hospital, though both had agreed beforehand not to reauthorize the NSA program. Gonzales and Andy Card (White House Chief of Staff) tried to bypass Comey by secretly visiting Mr. Ashcroft at the hospital and get him to sign the authorization while he was extremely ill and disoriented (his wife had forbidden any visitors). Comey and Mueller discovered the plan and raced to the hospital in an emergency vehicle to head them off. They literally raced up the hospital stairs minutes ahead of the others, in time for Mueller to instruct FBI guards not to evict Mr. Comey from the room if Mr. Gonzales and Mr. Card objected to his presence.
Minutes later Gonzales and Card arrived, at which point there was a high level standoff in Ashcroft’s room, finally settled by a barely conscious Ashcroft, who refused to re-authorize the program. You can’t make this stuff up!
I maintain Gonzales is hiding some much larger, more nefarious secrets. These secrets may have more to do with maintenance of power and control of our government (through elections and more), the stripping of constitutional rights, and dealings that make the Attorney Scandal look like rolling through your neighborhood stop sign.
It’s likely he has run ruffshod over the rest of the Justice Department and that when he gets ousted, good (but fearful) people from within the Justice Department will come out and expose all kinds of depraved affairs that we can only guess at now.
This explains the pathological effort on the part of Gonzales and the administration to keep him in this position despite the negative political fallout.
I maintain and hope that we will expose these issues someday.
But just as getting rid the Guest Who Will Never Leave takes some kind of courage (and possibly a 2×4), getting rid of this guy and getting to the bottom of this mess will require strength on the part of the American people and our lawmakers.
Our representatives need to go beyond party differences and admit that the emperor doesn’t have any clothes. They can demand the ouster of Mr. Gonzales.
