Almost defies parody

That would be the sudden announcement and chiding by Attorney General Alberto “The Law is What Me and the President SAY IT IS” Gonzales directed at FBI Director Robert Mueller over the now admitted abuse of National Security Letters. As our friend Julia might say, this calls for the Claude Rains Memorial Gambling Awareness Award… we are just shocked… SHOCKED… to hear that the abusive NSL’s that were authorized by the USA PATRIOT Act might be used in an abusive way by officials of the Bush Administration. Just shocked.
This is the same Alberto Gonzales who tells us that the Geneva Conventions are “quaint”, that habeas corpus is not intended to protect individuals, and that the President is the commander in chief of a unitary executive that confers him dictatorial powers subject only to whatever limits he feels like.
But, as it seems, Scooter Libby may be facing, you know, jail, for his role in advancing the pet political projects of this Administration, Gonzales figures he had better get some positive marks in his column, before the eventual day of reckoning when he may well find himself personally answering for his crimes against our Constitution (and against humanity). And hence, the sudden “concern” with the privacy rights of American citizens that, he now admits, was abused by the National Security Letters, at least (although the reporters who told us about this and other programs, such as the warrantless wire-tapping and electronic eavesdropping under other programs, should still be charged with treason and executed… of course.) Indeed, some low level schmucks’ heads may have to roll for all this.
So… what can you do? Just part of the grand canvass on which the Bush Administration– which didn’t invent “the signing statement”, but really is the first Administration to use it to tell Congress to f*** off (rather than a veto), encouraging the complete culture of rich-White-man’s lawlessness that has led directly to Enron and Worldcom and then on to Abu Ghraib– is painted.
And so… the Attorney General is shocked… just SHOCKED… to learn that abuses may have taken place.
As if.