Bush's Hombre de la Bolsa

Alberto had a good run. I think it is true, as argued forcefully by Sen. Charles Schumer, that the Attorney General's basic problem is that he fundamentally misconstrues his role as the head of the Department of Justice. Instead, Gonzales has always seen himself as Bush's mouthpiece, a wily, malleable and often devious advocate for Bush's bad idea-of-the-week. Such jobs have a built-in short life expectancy, as many Bush loyalists are learning, one by one.

In 1996 George W. Bush, then recently elected Governor of Texas, was summoned to jury duty on a drunk driving case. This presented, of course, a matter of extreme delicacy for Bush, as indeed almost anything which requires Bush to disclose something about his early life inevitably does. Bush went to the court house with Alberto, his chief counsel. Prospective jurors do not usually report for duty with a lawyer in tow, it should be noted. Accounts vary, but the most likely scenario is that Alberto called for a meeting in chambers with the judge and lawyers and advanced a novel argument. It was possible, said Gonzales, that Bush, as governor, might someday be called upon to consider a pardon request from the DUI defendant; thus, Bush's service as a juror presented a possible conflict of interest. Again, in the most believable scenario, the defense lawyer did not want Governor Bush, a "law and order" type, on the jury anyway, and Bush was excused.

The questionnaire Bush was required to complete in connection with his jury duty also posed some ticklish dilemmas. Among other uncomfortable questions, the form wanted Bush to disclose whether he had ever been a defendant in a criminal matter. Actually, he had. In 1976 he was arrested and convicted of a drunk driving charge in Maine. This part of the form was left blank. In his confirmation hearings for Attorney General, Alberto explained to the Administration's nemesis, Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, that this was a "frequent practice" on such questionnaires.

Both arguments that Gonzales was willing to make for his single client were, of course, utterly absurd. It is characteristic of Alberto that he will say any fool thing Bush needs him to say to get Bush out of a tight corner. Since Bush spends most of his life in tight corners, this is an exceedingly valuable quality in a Bush retainer. It has led Alberto, for example, to argue for Bush's rights to walk all over the Fourth Amendment and the FISA law, restricting (indeed, criminalizing) warrantless wiretaps. Alberto led the way on torture, lining up a posse of similarly ethically-compromised lawyers to sign off on violations of the Geneva Conventions, which Alberto called "quaint."

Alberto gained further notoriety recently in Senate testimony by advancing the head-scratching argument that the Suspension Clause of the Constitution did not imply the existence of a preexisting right to the "ancient" writ of habeas corpus. The Suspension Clause reads as follows:

"The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

Reacting to my own patriotic impulses, I have considered how I might assist George Bush's reactionary agenda of eliminating American freedoms. My first target begins at the beginning, the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights. This "quaint" provision reads like this:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

Notice that this weakly-worded amendment does not positively state that freedoms of religion, speech, press, assembly or petition actually exist. It just says Congress can't abridge them. But that hardly means the government has to recognize or protect them, any more than it has to recognize or protect the writ of habeas corpus.

Pienso que yo puedo ser un hombre de la bolsa tambien. Not that I want to brag. It's just clear that my extension of Alberto's argument is far more powerful than his puny abolition of the writ of habeas corpus. Hell, that just wipes out any hope for foreigners. Mine strikes at the true enemies of the Administration, the American people.