Alberto's V.O. Jive

Well, all day the sound bites of Alberto Gonzales serving to pleasure the "president" have been running on the radio.

I'm sorry: Serving at the "pleasure" of the "president."

And the CNN radio stooges ("I'm Dick YOO-lee-AH-nee slanting your news to the Right for you") have been falling in line with the talking point.

Only one thing: The Right Wing Echo Machine's talking point that these United States Attorneys "serve at the pleasure of the president," misses the salient point, by eliding the "rest of the story."

A provision was slithered into the Patriot Act reauthorization (even Arlen Specter, R, Invertibrate, didn't realize it was there) that stripped "advise and consent" from the appointment process. What we used to call a "check" on unlimited and unresponsive power. (It's from that old, unfashionable concept of "checks and balances" so in disfavor these daze.)

The United States Attorneys (essentially federal district attorneys) wield such broad discretionary powers that, while they are appointed by the Administration in power, the Senate must acquiesce in their appointment. Er ... FORMERLY so.

It seems that the scum-bag hacks that Bush, Rove, Gonzales, and, evidently, the Cosa Nostra bosses who run this maladministration want in the US Attorney's office might not be able to pass muster with this Congress. So, as per usual, the Imperial End Run. Bush can brook no questioning of his authority, as we've seen acted out these past six years with discomfiting and predictable frequency.

Bush and Gonzales, et al, seem excruciatingly uncomfortable with the Constitution and its principles, as though it were a giant wedgie in their pantaloons of cronyism.

"Serves at the pleasure of the president" CANNOT be divorced from the second clause, "with the advise and consent of Congress" any more than "poorer," "worse" and "sickness" can be divorced from the marriage vow, just keeping it for "richer, better and in health."

Both coinages are patent absurdities.

As is, come to think of it, Alberto Gonzales.

The man might have been the "first Hispanic" on the Supreme Court (if you conveniently forget Associate Justice Benjamin Cardozo 1932-1938), but he lost that, due to his sycophantic willingness to author the utterly specious "justification of torture" memos for Bush's "War on Terra." And, in the position of chief legal officer of the United States, it looks kind of like he's on that long Nixonian skid into a federal prison, like John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney General.

Wow, what a month for the "virtue" gang: the conviction of Scooter Libby, the Walter Reed Hospital scandal, and now the wholesale replacement of US Attorneys for not being political enough (one of whom successfully prosecuted former-Congressman and now jailbird "Duke" Cunningham for the worse bribery scandal in the history of Congress -- at least in terms of sheer $$).

So, where the hell is that "we're going to restore integrity to the White House" bunch that pilloried us in 2000 with their "virtue"?

And who is delusional enough to still believe them?

Courage.

NOTE: Today, March 14, would have been Albert Einstein's 128th birthday, had he taken his meds. Alas, he did not.