Quote of the day: Is Idiot Al's problem that when right-wing loons spew this crap to one another, nobody says, "You're outta your friggin' mind"?

"I find it unusual that some of my colleagues are critical of replacing Bush appointees."
--Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), regarding the administration's recent rash of suspiciously political-looking firings of U.S. attorneys


Of course it's easy for "Idiot John" Cornyn [right] to talk. He has nothing at stake. As long as Att'y Gen. "Idiot Al" ("The Torture Guy") Gonzales [pictured above] is in the picture, no one ever has to risk coming out a loser in a head-to-head Dumb-Off. Nobody expected our Al to be exactly forthcoming in his recent appearances before the newly Democratic-controlled Senate Judiciary Committe. But really!

And in fairness, Idiot Al has proved a bipartisan exasperator. First there was that Twilight Zone-ish skirmish about habeas corpus in which he reduced Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) to spluttering by insisting that, where the Constitution sets out (in Article II, Section 9) the only cases in which Congress may suspend "the privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus," it doesn't actually say that anyone in particular has that right. Now it's his response to questions, in particular from Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), about the administration's apparent purge of U.S. attorneys.

I guess it's the roster of seemingly serious jobs Idiot Al has held that served to deflect suspicion that he's less an evil ideologue than a drooling imbecile eager to service anyone with enough power to make mutually profitable use of his drooling services. So, for example, when he ended his Supreme Court hopes (the Supreme Court? Idiot Al? what could anyone have been thinking of?) by wading shoulder-deep into the torture cesspool, wouldn't you have thunk it must be out of some kind of ideological conviction?

Of course, then you look at who has put Idiot Al in all those serious-sounding jobs. And the more I hear the man blither, the less convinced I am that he believes anything, or even aspires to. Off these performances for the benefit of the Judiciary Committee, I have to say I believe that in a Dumb-Off between Idiot Al and his patron, Chimpy the Prez, nobody would walk away a winner.

So here's what Idiot Al had to say to suggestions that the administration has been purging U.S. attorneys (with the intention of replacing them, under a heretofore-unknown provision sneaked into the Patriot Act, with administration stooges who could serve indefinitely without facing Senate confirmation) to spare still-standing administration cronies and stooges the humiliation, or even downright inconvenience, of being brought to justice:

What we're trying to do is ensure that for the people in each of these respective districts, we have the very best possible representative for the Department of Justice.

And:

I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it.

I would like to think that this is going to prove so demonstrably false that our Idiot Al will find himself facing perjury charges, at the very least.

As for "Idiot John" Cornyn:

Let's take this slowly, senator. If by some bizarre chance it happened that, six years into the Bush presidency, any of the fired U.S. attorneys somehow happened to have been appointed by someone other than this president, like for example the previous one, the Great Satan Bill Clinton, we all know what you would be saying. You would be saying, "I find it unusual that my colleagues are surprised by the replacement of these political appointees. It's clear that their criticism is politically motivated."

What your colleagues are suggesting, Senator Cornyn, is that political hatchetry is the obvious explanation for the wholesale replacement of Bush-appointed U.S. attorneys who have shown some understanding of their job, and attempted to poke around in the miasma of corruption, ignorance and flagrant law-breaking that is the "life" force of this regime.