“He’s not ready,” Tasia Scolinos, Gonzales’s public-affairs chief.
Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cleared his calendar for nearly two weeks in order to memorize answers to questions he might be asked under oath when he testifies before Congress on April 17.
The challenge facing Abu, one of Pres. George Bush’s most loyal flying monkeys, of course, is that he can’t tell the truth under oath without either perjuring himself or implicating flying monkeys higher up in the food chain, including Karl Rove and Bush’s former secretary, Harriet Miers, and maybe the president himself, in the scandal around the firing of U.S. attorneys late last year:
[Even] his own closest advisers are nervous about whether he is up to the task. At a recent “prep” for a prospective Sunday talk-show interview, Gonzales’s performance was so poor that top aides scrapped any live appearances. During the March 23 session in the A.G.’s conference room, Gonzales was grilled by a team of top aides and [GOP bigwigs] about what he knew about the plan to fire seven U.S. attorneys last fall. But Gonzales kept contradicting himself and “getting his timeline confused,” said one participant … His advisers finally got “exasperated” with him, the source added. “He’s not ready,” Tasia Scolinos, Gonzales’s public-affairs chief, told the A.G.’s top aides after the session was over…
The problem is, DOJ lawyers have forbidden Gonzales to have any contact with other witnesses, and since everyone close to him is on the witness list, he’s having a hard time getting his story straight.
While the attorney general studies his lines 24/7, and his underlings are all legally constrained from talking with him or each other (presumably) the Dept. of Justice is leaderless and rudderless.
Connect:
Maybe this is good news? We now know the US can effectively function without a US Attorney General.
Perhaps we should just eliminate that office in future.
I can’t wait for the testimony. This guy is really such a lightweight, so in over his head, and so darn guilty, it should be really entertaining watching him blunder and sqirm like the worm that he is. I hope it is televised on c-span or something. the whole world needs to see this guy exposed. He has been with Bush so long, he may well be the keystone guy that can really pull the curtain back on all the criminal activity, pre and post 2000. If he gan be gotten in enough trouble, ouwld he “flip” on Bushie? If he did, would he live to tell?
“..contact with other witnesses, and since everyone close to him is on the witness list, he’s having a hard time getting his story straight.”
Isn’t this the definition of a “continuing criminal enterprise” that falls under the RICCO statute?
Oops, i forgot. If you’re connected, rich, white, Republican or have been blessed with a set of extra soft lips, you don’t do any time.
We have to save the prison cells for drunks, pot smokers and minorities.
They have politicized everything .The Iraq war is just a political scheme for Bushco relection and Justice itself is subverted for Bushco,. Bushco is the worst thing to happen to AMerica in its history.
Please, let him testify I want to see the Talking Monkey and the Spineless, Gutless, Coward and Traitor and his Traitor ally the “brain” (oxymoron) in front of Congress. I do have a strong supicion that at the last minute he is going to resign.
Like this administration he is a C O W A R D.
One time honored political technique is to leak dire predictions. When the
ultimate performance is not nearly as bad as the leaked predictions, the media views the performance as a triumph. It smells like that in the prelude to the Gonzales appearance.
Well said, Frog. W (ie Rove) is the master of lowered expectations. Too well I remember the debates of 2000 where W was hailed for surviving. …and how after Harriet Miers even Alito looked reasonable (and on and on).
Tune in to CSPAN3:
Tuesday 4/17 at 10 a.m. ET
Get it streamed online if you aren’t close to a TV.