Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, revealed himself this weekend to be either the biggest fool on the Hill or a political hack who has sold himself out by shilling for the Rove machine. After a long silence on the federal prosecutor purge, Hatch came out with a statement of support for embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales yesterday:
“He has always been straightforward and honest with me … So, unless there is clear evidence that the attorney general deliberately lied or misled Congress, I see no reason to call for his resignation.”
Less than 24 hours before Hatch issued this statement, a Friday-night document dump by the Dept. of Justice revealed new evidence that Gonzales has lied about his role in the firings.
On March 13, at his “mistakes were made” news conference, Gonzales said:
I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood.
But records from DOJ’s Friday-night dump show that Gonzales was directly involved in planning the purge:
The records show that Gonzales approved plans to fire the prosecutors at an hourlong meeting Nov. 27, less than two weeks before the dismissal of seven of the prosecutors.
When Hatch issued his statement yesterday, was he aware of the stark new evidence produced the night before that Abu was caught on tape lying about his involvement?
If not, Hatch is a fool for putting his trust in anyone in Bush’s inner circle (and one who is poorly served by his staff who should have known about it). On the other hand, if he knew about the new evidence when he made the statement, he is a political hack of the first order.
We’ll see which is which in fairly short order.
Send a banana to the White House’s new monkey . . .
When will intergrity thrump being a “good bushie”?????