Congress Hosts Gonzales Photo-op

Senator Arlen Specter showed us his concern over illegal spying on US citizens was only skin deep when he allowed Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to “testify” before the Senate Judiciary Committee while not under oath.
He and other GOP Senators consigned the serious concerns of their colleagues and their constituents to the ash heap with a wink and a nod. The long awaited hearing, meant to provide accountability to a worried nation suddenly became a PR opportunity for Gonzales to defend the indefensible with members of the Judiciary Committee as a thoughtfully placed backdrop.

Gonzales, now freed from any concerns over prosecution for perjuring himself before the Congress, pulled out all the stops.

He claimed the “surveillance program” was aimed at rooting out terrorists though there is little evidence to support him.
He defended the president’s actions and his own bad advice with the breathtakingly fatuous claim that they were operating within constitutional constraints, US law and non-existent presidential war powers.

It was pure and unadulterated hogwash.

The majority of "people of interest" are not terrorists but peace activists and interest groups that oppose the president’s views. We might even consider that some of those spied by NSA might be members Judiciary Committee who voted to allow Gonzales to prattle on without any considertion for the veracity of his statements.

There is no evidence, to date that the Bush administration is interested in or capable of defending America and Americans from terrorists. Quite the reverse is true. Most of the actions of the Bush administration have put us at increased risk of terrorist attack while failing to harden obvious targets and make the bloated bureaucracies work.

The US Constitution expressly forbids unreasonable search and seizure. A body of law requiring probable cause, warrants and judicial oversight has developed as a result of constitutional requirements. Bush, Gonzales and the NSA met none of those conditions. Congress expressly forbade Bush expanded presidential war powers when they voted, after being lied to and manipulated, to allow the use of force in Iraq.

If you remain unconvinced of the real intent of Congress, it cut the funding off for a similar program called DARPA in 2004, administered by convicted Iran Contra criminal John Poindexter. Under no circumstances should the US military or the CIA be in the business of spying on Americans.

You only have to understand what sort of guy Gonzales is and know that his entire career owes its success to Bush Family largesse in exchange for some highly suspect services rendered, to harbor the gravest suspicions about anything this man has to say, especially when he is not under oath and especially if it involves a Bush.

A glance at the headlines produced by the client media on his performance in the Senate helps us to understand the purpose of this exercise. Instead of reading “Attorney General Won’t Testify Under Oath”, they say “Gonzales Defends Spying” and “Gonzales; Spy Program Vital” or “Bush Set on Domestic Spying; Some Senators Want Congressional Okay”. The purpose was to build a permissive attitude toward Bush's illegal activities and manufacture consent.

Read or hear anything about Gonzales’s inherent conflict of interest, his questionable credibility or much about the fact that he wasn’t under oath? Did you find any information about your Constitutional Rights, the history of abuse of similar programs or what law is? Of course not.

Gonzales's "testimony" is little more than an empty sales pitch for a dangerously defective product. It’s a shamless ploy to allow a man most people wouldn’t buy a used car from and who cannot be trusted with the ordinary responibilities of citizenship to have access to the most intimate information about our lives. Gonzales is asking us to allow him to strike down the constitution and allow such a man to exercise unrestrained power over our lives.
I
f the polls reflect that we aren't buying any, they'll crank up the rhetoric on the right wing talk shows and the overpaid chattering class on television and cram it down our throats till we are tired and confused. They’ll cite polluted polls and make us feel like we are all alone in expecting our elected officials to follow the law, keep their oath of office, support the Constitution and butt out of our lives.

This production was orchestrated by White House slime artist Karl Rove. According to congressional aides, Rove called in all the GOP Senators on the Judiciary Committee and threatened to withdraw financial support in future elections if they didn't become accessories to Bush's crimes or as he puts it, "support the president".

The good people of this nation may or may not have elected Bush president, but we absolutely did not elect Karl Rove to run the country or pollute Congress by browbeating our Senators.
I'm sure we'll all feel a lot better when Karl is confined and medicated and we are no longer subject to the twisted logic and orchestrated performances of the exercise of illegitimate power.

Carol DW