Gonzales getur ekki munað hvort hann var í vinnunni, hvað hann borðaði í morgunmat, hvort hann sé raunverulga dómsmálaráðherra...

Gonzales kom ekki sérlega vel út úr yfirheirslunni, og tókst engan veginn að sannfæra áhorfendur um að hann væri að segja sannleikann - eða að bjóða upp á sæmilega sannfærandi afsakanir eða útskýringar. Skv. NYT:

In more than five hours of often-combative testimony, Mr. Gonzales, grim-faced, clasping his hands and hunched over, struggled to offer a coherent explanation for the dismissals. He apologized for his mistakes in what he said was a flawed process, but defended the removal of eight United States attorneys as proper.

Gonzales kom sér undan því að svara spurningum nefndarmanna, og bar stöðugt við lélegu minni: 

His performance clearly exasperated the committee members, who were angered as he invoked a faulty memory more than 50 times ...

Það er rétt að hafa í huga að Gonzales var búinn að vera að undirbúa sig undir yfirheirslurnar í meira en viku. Samkvæmt talsmanni dómsmálaráðherrans hafði hann eytt seinustu þremur vikum eða svo bak við luktar dyr með aðstoðarmönnum sínum og ráðgjöfum. Skv. Washington Post fyrir tveimur vikum:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has retreated from public view this week [2-6 apríl!] in an intensive effort to save his job, spending hours practicing testimony and phoning lawmakers for support in preparation for pivotal appearances in the Senate this month, according to administration officials.

Í ljósi alls þessa undirbúnings þykir mönnum sérkennilegt hversu lítið Gonzales gat munað. Og voru engin skjöl eða pappírar sem gátu hjálpað Gonzales að muna hvað gerðist, hvar hann var og við hverja hann talaði? Annað hvort er dómsmálaráðuneytið undir stjórn Gonzales afspyrnu ílla rekið og Gonzales fullkomlega vanhæfur - öll skjöl týnast og ráðherran veit ekkert og man ekkert - EÐA Gonzales er vísvitandi að leyna upplýsingum. Eitt er í það minnsta ljóst: Gonzales er lélegur ræðumaður. Hvernig er hægt að hafa þrjár vikur til að semja og æfa ræður og svör og standa sig samt ekki betur en raun ber vitni?

Leiðari New York Times um yfirheirslu gærdagsins segir þetta um framburð Gonzales: "Some of his answers were merely laughable.":

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had gone to the Senate yesterday to convince the world that he ought to be fired, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a better job, short of simply admitting the obvious: that the firing of eight United States attorneys was a partisan purge.

Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch.

He had no trouble remembering complaints from his bosses and Republican lawmakers about federal prosecutors who were not playing ball with the Republican Party’s efforts to drum up election fraud charges against Democratic politicians and Democratic voters. But he had no idea whether any of the 93 United States attorneys working for him — let alone the ones he fired — were doing a good job prosecuting real crimes.

He delegated responsibility for purging their ranks to an inexperienced and incompetent assistant who, if that’s possible, was even more of a plodding apparatchik. Mr. Gonzales failed to create the most rudimentary standards for judging the prosecutors’ work, except for political fealty. And when it came time to explain his inept decision making to the public, he gave a false account that was instantly and repeatedly contradicted by sworn testimony.

Even the most loyal Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee found it impossible to throw Mr. Gonzales a lifeline. ...

Vandamálið er að Gonzales gat ekki útskýrt neitt fyrir þinginu: Hann gat ekki varpað neinu ljósi á brottrekstur saksóknararanna - hver ákvað hvaða saksóknara ætti að reka eða hvernig þessir saksóknarar voru valdir.

Mr. Gonzales was even unable to say who compiled the list of federal attorneys slated for firing. The man he appointed to conduct the purge, Kyle Sampson, said he had not created the list. The former head of the office that supervises the federal prosecutors, Michael Battle, said he didn’t do it, as did William Mercer, the acting associate attorney general.

Mr. Gonzales said he did not know why the eight had been on the list when it was given to him, that it had not been accompanied by any written analysis and that he had just assumed it reflected a consensus of the senior leaders of his department. At one point, Mr. Gonzales even claimed that he could not remember how the Justice Department had come to submit an amendment to the Patriot Act that allowed him to fire United States attorneys and replace them without Senate confirmation. The Senate voted to revoke that power after the current scandal broke. ...

Hvernig getur dómsmálaráðhe Bandaríkjanna búist við því að við trúum því að hann hafi ekki hugmynd um hvernig ákvarðanir á borð við þessar eru teknar?

At the end of the day, we were left wondering why the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer would paint himself as a bumbling fool. Perhaps it’s because the alternative is that he is not telling the truth. There is strong evidence that this purge was directed from the White House, and that Karl Rove, Mr. Bush’s top political adviser, and Harriet Miers, the former White House counsel, were deeply involved. ...

Framburður Gonzales í gær gerði nefnilega ekkert til þess að slá á grunsemdir þeirra sem hafa haldið því fram að það sé eitthvað grunsamlegt við brottreksturinn. Af hverju getur dómsmálaráðherran ekki gefið sannfærandi útskýringu á brottrekstri ríkissaksóknara, þrátt fyrir margra vikna undirbúning? Og ef Gonzales var ekki viðriðinn neinar af þessum ákvörðunum (sem er þá nóg til að hann segi af sér) hver stjórnar þá dómsmálaráðuneytinu?

We don’t yet know whether Mr. Gonzales is merely so incompetent that he should be fired immediately, or whether he is covering something up.

But if we believe the testimony that neither he nor any other senior Justice Department official was calling the shots on the purge, then the public needs to know who was. That is why the Judiciary Committee must stick to its insistence that Mr. Rove, Ms. Miers and other White House officials testify in public and under oath and that all documents be turned over to Congress, including e-mail messages by Mr. Rove that the Republican Party has yet to produce.

M

Athugasemdir

[GMM (IP-tala skráð) 22.4.2007 kl. 12:17]

Ja hérna! Blessaður karl fauskurinn hefur tæplega gullfiskaminni, - enda er honum nú vorkunn í gruggugu fiskabúri Bush stjórnarinnar!!