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Yikes : Accused of permitting unwarranted spying on citizens , torture , helping to blow a CIA agent's cover and firing non-political appointees for political reasons , former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales left the White House shrouded in ignominy. Facebook just hired his former right-hand man, Ted Ullyot, as its general counsel. The privacy advocates who plagued Facebook during its Beacon controversy might not be pleased, but Washington insider and top Facebook flack Elliot Schrage is giddy. ( via ) To quote Marty McFly: Are these guys deaf and stupid?

Smell that transparency (or rather, fear of going to jail)!

Anybody need to hire an out-of-work former Attorney General who advocates torture ?

Yeah he retired; and not too soon. But everything you need to know about the man responsible for making sure laws are followed and that the legal interests of the American People are always considered can be summed up here : "President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance of the enemy on a far broader scale." Sigh. (H/T to Perrspectives )

I wanted to hear what others were going to say about the Democrat's basic capitulation to President Bush for his FISA revisions. Long story short: Alberto Gonzales -the Attorney General who doesn't seem to want to follow the law or tell the truth- can now spy on pretty much whomever he wants. Anyway, the best take was JP , who says: Democrats, especially the so-called Blue Dog Democrats, were terrified that George W. Bush would call them names and say they were weak on terrorism, even though it had been proven a year and a half ago that not only has bypassing FISA not resulted in us catching a single legitimate terrorist of note, it’s also been used by the White House to spy on countless millions of American citizens who are capriciously labeled enemies of the state. I was always concerned that the game plan for the Democrats in Congress was to do nothing and hope that the Bush Administration and the Republican would doom themselves. The problem with this strategy is that it me...

Too bad the Bush Administration can't send their more unqualified staff, Cabinet members and appointees to night school or something, so they can actually try and learn to do the job they've been assigned to. Today Alberto Gonzales proved himself to be both completely incompetent and utterly untrustworthy . As Slate writer Emily Bazelon puts it : Even after all these months of tacking and backtracking, Gonzales' lack of command of the details is something to behold. He doesn't know the total number of U.S. attorneys who were fired. He doesn't recall his participation in reversing former U.S. Attorney Paul Charlton's decision about whether to seek the death penalty in a case where all the evidence was circumstantial. He doesn't know why DoJ's new guide to prosecuting voter fraud removed or watered down key directives against pursuing cases in a way that could interfere with the outcome of an election. He doesn't know why the Justice Department's...

...or at the very least, completely contradict yourself .

Namely, how to smear his outgoing co-workers .

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales came before the House today to testify on the US attorney firings. Even though many Republicans decided to ask different questions (many dealing only with their state/district) that had nothing to do with the hiring and firing of US attorneys, some House members stayed on track. Here's a sample: Keeping in mind that the House is more...exteme...then the Senate, things got testy at times. The thing that stood out to me was that Gonzales couldn't answer the very first question posed to him: "who made the list?" In fact, Gonzales couldn't answer (or remember) alot of things. Reminded me of a certain movie where the guy getting peppered with questions turned out to be, at best, relatively useless...

From CNN : The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman issued a subpoena Wednesday to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in an attempt to get e-mails that President Bush's top political adviser sent regarding last year's firings of eight U.S. attorneys. Gonzales will have to appear before the committee if the Department of Justice does not respond to the subpoena for Karl Rove's e-mails by May 15. Justice Department Spokesman Dean Boyd said the department had received the subpoena and was reviewing it.

I haven't talked much about the White House's involvement with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the firing of those eight attorneys. Quick recap: 8 US attorneys were fired, which isn't so weird (with every new administration, the old attorneys are always replaced) except that since Reagan only about five have ever been let go during a president's second term. That made the Democrats suspicious, and their suspicions seemed to justified because it turns out in a few of these cases, attorneys appeared to be fired for either not prosecuting Democrats or for continuing to prosecute Republicans (or people connected to Republicans). The popular theory is that Karl Rove was using US attorneys for political means : specifically, to keep Republicans in a permanent majority by covering up for corrupt Republicans and bringing indictment after indictment on Democrats (regardless of whether or not they were actually corrupt). Alberto Gonzales ( Mr. 2-Minutes ) denies that he did...

Mr. 2-Minutes has been issued a subpoena from the House Judiciary Committee: Attached is a subpoena for documents and electronic information that we previously requested from the Department in connection with the investigation into the circumstances surrounding the recent termination of several United States Attorneys and related matters, which the Department has furnished to us thus far only in redacted form, or has told the Subcommittee is was withholding. The subpoena is being issued pursuant to authority granted by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial Administrative Law on March 21, 2007. I appreciate your cooperation in voluntarily supplying a number of documents in response to the Subcommittee's request. As we have written and told you and your staff on a number of occasions, however and reiterated most recently in our letters of March 22, March 28, and April 2, 2007, the incomplete response we have received thus far falls far short of what is needed...

Mr. 2-Minute Man has cancelled a trip with the family in order to talk to the Senate. Of course, the sooner he goes "on record" the sooner his current and former subordinates will have a template (his) to use for their possible testimony. So time is of the essence.

Now this is an interesting editorial. From the Boston Globe : THE SUSPICION that partisan politics motivated at least some of the Bush administration's firings of eight US attorneys sharpened this week. Former Justice Department aide Kyle Sampson told the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday that "the distinction between political and performance-related reasons for removing a US attorney is, in my view, largely artificial." If senators accept this state of affairs, they should close down their inquiry into the purge and accept a new reality: that US attorneys are not objective enforcers of the laws but part of a president's political machine -- 93 Karl Roves with prosecutorial powers. But if the committee rejects that, it should explore further two major disclosures by Sampson. One was that, contrary to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's past denial of involvement in the sackings, Gonzales conferred with Sampson several times about them. Confirmation of his fals...

That's how long Attn. Gen. Alberto Gonzales lasted until he decided to end his Chicago news conference. Reporters had started to ask about the lawyer firings at that point (specifically about the potential firing of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who prosecuted Scooter Libby).

Ex-MD governor Bob Ehrlich has decided to back Team Giuliani: " Ehrlich said his position will involve raising money for Giuliani and giving speeches on his behalf ." I wonder if Ehrlich if any of those speeches will refer to Giuliani's support of Gonzales ?

President Bush defends yet another embattled White House official (this time it's Attn. Gen. Alberto Gonzales), but the first Republican to call for resignations comes out of the woodwork. Why do I get the impression that this is going to be a pattern for the next two years? The one guy that shouldn't have been replaced (Colin Powell, the only White House guy with any credibility) was let go, and every other position either became stagnant (Donald Rumsfeld as Sec. of Defense) or "cronyfied" (Gonzales replacing Ashcroft). Nevertheless, even if every joker in this deck resigns or is fired, the king will just select another to replace them. It's way past time to think about shuffling the whole deck and giving the American people a new hand to play with.