Standing By Your Sex-Hobbyist -Man; Because It's Your Fault Too?

ALBERTO GONZALES'
DOG ATE IT!

Most mornings, after I pull myself out of bed, with just a few hours sleep and before the sun comes up, make lunches, get my kids ready and to their separate buses (do not get me started about the NYC school busing disaster) I run to get some coffee and come home to check my RSS reader. I am a news junkie. I have been for a long time.

Yes, I know. I am a just a "wild woman"!! Hahahaha.

This morning as I was cleaning up the constant chaos in my living room I put on C-SPAN. No, I have never watched the talk shows much and I have always hated soap operas. Ick. So much for suburban housewife-ry! But lo' and behold, there were the hearings starring Alberto Gonzales. More riveting television has to wait for the Sopranos final season!

Yes, C-SPAN folks. Like I said, I am just a "wild woman." I couldn't tear myself away. I laughed, I cried, I screamed "YOU LIAR" at the top of my lungs! Baruch Hashem the neighbors all were at work! My birdfeeders were empty - the birds all flew away from my cackling. My cable connection was awash in verbal doo-doo. I was dizzy from the spin.

I don't think I have heard more "I don't know" or "I don't remember"s since I asked my child where her latest homework was. I was waiting for Kyle Sampson and Alberto himself to tell us "the dog ate it!" Perhaps the dog looked like Karl Rove?

Anyone who knows me knows I can't HELP but draw parallels between the behavior of abusive minds and these boys in suits in Washington. The entitlement, the doublespeak and my all time "fav" THE LYING!!

Have any of you experienced this in your own life?
To avoid exposure of his own abusive behaviour, the abuser will begin a smear campaign against his victim often directed at her closest friends, coworkers and even family. On closer examination, the words of the abuser often reflect his own behaviour.
Sound familiar?

You can read some other beauts from these types of abusers just CLICK HERE

Now for the political tongue-tap-dance of the day:

Ex-Aide Says Gonzales Was Involved in Firings
By DAVID STOUT and BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON — The former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales testified today that contrary to Mr. Gonzales’s earlier assertions, the attorney general was involved in discussions to fire United States attorneys.

“I don’t think the attorney general’s statement that he was not involved in any discussions about U.S. attorney removals is accurate,” the former Gonzales aide, D. Kyle Sampson, said under questioning at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

“I don’t think it’s accurate,” Mr. Sampson repeated under questioning by Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the panel’s ranking Republican. “I think he’s recently clarified it. But I remember discussing with him this process of asking certain U.S. attorneys to resign, and I believe that he was present at the meeting on Nov. 27.”

It was disclosed last week that Justice Department documents showed Mr. Gonzales to be present at the Nov. 27, 2006, session in which the firing of federal prosecutors was discussed. That disclosure seemed to contradict Mr. Gonzales’s assertions at a March 13 news conference that he was not involved in talks about letting the prosecutors go.

“So,” Senator Specter went on, “he was involved in discussions, contrary to the statement he made in his news conference on March 13?”

“I believe — yes, sir,” Mr. Sampson replied.

(OOOPS!! so much for that letter of recommendation Mr. Sampson!)

The testimony of Mr. Sampson, a loyal aide to Mr. Gonzales until his recent resignation, could create grave problems for the attorney general, who is already under fire from Democrats and some Republicans for the way the dismissals of the prosecutors were carried out.

Even those Republicans who have so far been loyal to Mr. Gonzales have complained that the dismissals were accompanied by poor communications and poor explanations, points that even President Bush has conceded. With new doubt cast on Mr. Gonzales’s candor, or at the very least his memory, support for him could further erode, despite President Bush’s insistence that he wants his old friend from Texas to stay on.

Under questioning from Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, Mr. Sampson said he did not recall a single instance in which someone from the Bush administration suggested removing a United States attorney for “an improper reason.” But over all, the questions and answers cast Mr. Gonzales in an unflattering light.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, pursued a line of questioning similar to Mr. Specter’s, and with similar results. Mr. Schumer recalled Mr. Gonzales’s statement of March 13 that he “never saw documents” related to the impending dismissals and “we never had a discussion about where things stood.”

“Was that statement accurate?” Mr. Schumer asked.

“I don’t think it’s entirely accurate, what he said,” Mr. Sampson replied. He went on to say that he did not know if the attorney general had seen dismissal-related documents, but that he was sure Mr. Gonzales was involved in discussions about the firings early on.

As for the Nov. 27 meeting, Mr. Sampson said he did not recall it clearly.

“But,” Mr. Schumer persisted, “your recollection is, he did speak at the meeting?”

“Yes,” Mr. Sampson said.

“O.K.,” Mr. Schumer said. “Now that in itself says a whole lot.”

Mr. Gonzales’s early accounts were further undermined in an exchange between Mr. Sampson and Senator Herb Kohl, Democrat of Wisconsin.

“Now, this is hard to believe,” Mr. Kohl said. “Either the attorney general was simply absent as manager of the Justice Department or he’s not been candid with the American people about his participation in the firings. Which one is it, or is there some other explanation?”

“Well,” Mr. Sampson replied, “as I said in a previous answer, the attorney general was aware of this process from the beginning in early 2005. He and I had discussions about it during the thinking phase of the process.” The attorney general’s involvement continued until the list of dismissals was final, Mr. Sampson said.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Sampson, who appeared before the committee voluntarily, insisted that while the firings of eight United States attorneys had brought “confusion, misunderstanding and embarrassment” to the Justice Department, none of the eight had been dismissed for any improper reason.

Mr. Sampson portrayed the firings as a good-faith but badly handled initiative, properly conceived but “poorly explained.” He also apologized to his former Justice Department colleagues, and said news coverage of the matter had been “deeply devastating” to himself and his family.

But senators, for the most part, seemed unimpressed. Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the committee chairman, said the Bush administration had provided “a series of shifting explanations and excuses and lack of accountability or even acknowledgment of the seriousness of this matter.”

And Senator Specter said that while it was still not clear whether United States attorneys like Carol C. Lam in California or David C. Iglesias in New Mexico had been removed with the intention of affecting political-corruption investigations by their offices, the broader impact of the firings had been devastating.

“It is generally acknowledged that the Department of Justice is in a state of disrepair, perhaps even dysfunctional, because of what has happened, with morale low,” Mr. Specter said. “U.S. attorneys across the country do not know when another shoe may drop, whether they may be asked to resign for a bad reason.”

(THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT - did you all GET THAT - OUR JUSTICE DEPARTMENT is in DISREPAIR and DYSFUNCTIONAL! Wow, I feel safe... not)

Democrats in particular expressed deep doubt at Mr. Sampson’s argument that politics were not involved in the dismissals. “In the last seven weeks, we’ve learned that Attorney General Gonzales was personally involved in the firing plan, after being told that he wasn’t,” Mr. Schumer said. “We’ve learned that the White House was involved, involved, after being told that it wasn’t; we’ve learned that Karl Rove was involved, after being told that he wasn’t,” the senator said, alluding to the president’s chief political adviser. “And we have learned that political considerations were very important, after being told that they weren’t.”

Mr. Sampson opened with a prepared statement, parts of which had been obtained by the news media late Wednesday.

He argued that the list of United States attorneys to be fired had been compiled with the involvement of “a number of senior Justice Department officials”; that the process, while not “scientific,” was also not “random or arbitrary”; and that the United States attorneys had been appropriately judged by management skills, relationships with other officials and “their support for the priorities of the president and the attorney general.”

“The distinction between political and performance-related reasons for removing a U.S. attorney is, in my view, largely artificial,” Mr. Sampson said.

It also remained unclear how much he knew about all the motives for the removals.

Democrats and a few Republicans have said the handling of the dismissals suggested that the Bush administration may have intended, for partisan purposes, to slow or jump-start certain cases under the purview of some of the eight United States attorneys.

That sort of interference, Mr. Sampson testified, would indeed fall into the category of “improper reasons” for removal. He then added that “to my knowledge, nothing of the sort occurred here.”

But while noting that many Justice Department officials had been involved in the winnowing process, he said that as coordinator of the process, he owed them an apology.

“I believe the department’s response was badly mishandled,” he said. “It was mishandled through an unfortunate combination of poor judgments, poor word choices, and poor communication and preparation for the department’s testimony before Congress.”

“For my part in allowing this to happen, I want to apologize to my former DoJ colleagues, especially the U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign.”

He acknowledged indirectly that the United States attorney in Arkansas, H.E. “Bud” Cummins, had been asked to resign in favor of “a particular individual who had already been identified,” but said none of the others had.

Justice Department officials had acknowledged on Wednesday that they provided incorrect information to Congress in a letter drafted by Mr. Sampson and approved by the White House counsel. The letter, dated Feb. 23, said that ”the department is not aware” of the president’s adviser Karl Rove ”playing any role” in the decision to appoint his former deputy, J. Timothy Griffin, as interim United States attorney in Arkansas, Mr. Cummins’s former position.

The letter was written weeks after Mr. Sampson wrote in other messages that Mr. Griffin’s appointment was ”important to Harriet, Karl, etc.,” referring to Mr. Rove and Harriet E. Miers, the White House counsel at the time.

Mr. Sampson insisted that he had not been asked to resign, and that he had not done so out of any belief “that I withheld information from department witnesses or intentionally misled either those witnesses or the Congress.”

“The mistakes I made here were made honestly and in good faith,” he said. “I never sought to conceal or withhold any material fact about this matter from anyone.”

(HONESTLY AND IN GOOD FAITH?? This whole statement is an oxymoron)

Mr. Gonzales has said the Justice Department ousted the prosecutors solely for reasons of job performance and not political reasons. But internal department e-mail messages show consideration was also given to the views of senators, administration policy priorities and legislative goals.

ORIGINAL