No on Gonzales

Let's be clear: His tortured legalese resulting in the atrocities at Abu Ghraib ought to be reason enough for the Senate to reject the nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General.

But now comes word that he pulled strings for then-Governor Bush at a voir dire so that Bush could avoid disclosing his own DUI conviction -- and has subsequently prevaricated about it, under oath, before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

I am reminded of attorney Tom Hagen's line in the opening scene of "The Godfather", where he explained to the movie mogul: "I have a very special practice. I represent one client."

Throughout his career as consigliere to Dubya, the task of Al Gonzales -- indeed his mission -- has been to find, or absent that, invent the justification for whatever it is that needed doing. Questionable or not, shady or not, legal or not. You can almost hear Bush saying "Git it done, Al," spoken with his trademark smirk, through the years.

Can't have the Guvna answer no questions about drinkin' and drivin'? Call in a chit wit' the judge. Got a death row inmate that needs killin'? Gloss over the fact that the condemned man's lawyer fell asleep during his trial. Need to make some camel jockeys -- errr, terrists -- spill their guts? Hell, that Geneva Convention's not only sixty years old, it's for pussies.

Conservatives get apoplectic when the Bush administration is called thugs, gangsters, or God forbid, a multinational corporation. When they do, we should simply open a page from any one of the law books in Alberto Gonzales' library. They all say the same thing.

"Git it done, Al."

To vote to confirm this man as attorney general goes against seemingly every concept of freedom, liberty, and democracy mouthed by the President last Thursday and espoused in the Constitution. Not that that sort of thing matters much.

The Senate should reject this nominee.

Sorry, been sick

And more than a little beesy.

Will now get right back to reporting.

Remember when Bush first came into office, he made a lot of the fact that he was the first president with an MBA, and who had no previous experience with the way things are done in Washington? I distinctly remember one of his weekly addresses, given sometime between January 20 and September 11 2001, where he announced that he would use his business skills to make government more efficient and more responsive.

Problem is, if you think of government as a business and the president as its CEO, you will also see things like, oh, international law as just another annoying impediment to your freedom to make decisions -- much like a CEO may think of the tax code and all those other tedious regulations they have to deal with, like worker safety and environmental protections. You won't think of governing as a solemn obligation; that you have a duty to uphold, and that maybe you should occasionally exceed its literal requirements to create goodwill. Instead, you will tell the government's legal experts that they are now the equivalent of corporate lawyers, that it is now their job to probe for loopholes in the law, and then exploit them as best they can.

Strange as it seems, there are some things that traditional Washington insiders do right, and maverick MBAs don't get. More generally, you don't necessarily improve government by pretending it's a business.

Zero, zip, nada, f*ck all

So today we read that, apart from the centrifuge buried in someone's backyard for a decade, no WMDs have been discovered in Iraq, and BushCo is finally admitting it.

Since 51% of Americans voted for Bush despite coming to this realization long before the election, it should be obvious to "everybody" that "nobody" (that would be 100% of everybody -- or 100% of nobody if you wish to use the prevailing conservative logic) cares.

On this same rationale you will see a federal budget that freezes or slashes spending on every single government program except defense and homeland security. Not even COLAs will happen, meaning that spending won't keep up with inflation.

You will see the administration attempt to ram through judicial nominees that were previously turned down by changing Senate rules that have been in place since the Founders' signatures on the Constitution were still wet.

And you'll see the majority party continue to whine, bitch, and cry about how the minority is "obstructing" them.

They will do -- or attempt to do, based on how hard the Democrats choose to fight back -- all of this in the name of that 51% "mandate" they claim.

Audacity just simply does not begin to describe it.