Like a recalcitrant school boy, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales turned in his homework late and incomplete. (Wow, could my mom relate to that.)
If anything, Mr. Gonzales’s letter makes it less clear as to what he was talking about when he told the Committee about that late-night visit to John Ashcroft’s hospital bed to get him to sign off on the re-authorization of the Terrorist Surveillance Program. He wasn’t talking about this Terrorist Surveillance Program; he was talking about that Terrorist Surveillance Program. Got that? Clear as mud. And he never answered the question as to who it was who sent him on this mission in the first place. (As Vice President Cheney said the other night on CNN, he doesn’t recall who sent him, either. As is the case with all such I-can’t-recall non-denial denials from the Bush administration, the person who says “I can’t recall” is probably the one who did it.)
This didn’t cut it with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT):
“The Attorney General’s legalistic explanation of his misleading testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week is not what one should expect from the top law enforcement officer of the United States. It is time for full candor to enforce the law and promote justice, rather than word parsing.
“The Attorney General has until the end of this week to correct and supplement his testimony. I hope he will take that opportunity to clarify the many issues on which he appears not to have been forthcoming and to tell the Senate Judiciary Committee and the American people the whole truth.”
Sounds like it’s time for a time-out for Mr. Gonzales.