Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3 (or is it 4 or 5?)

Reports out of Washington indicate that Attorney General Alberto I-Never-Saw-A-Bush-Idea-I-Didn’t-Totally-Love-And-Consider-To-Be-Legal-Beyond-A-Shadow-Of-A-Doubt Gonzales is struggling in preparing to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee about having detonated an IED next to a mini-van filled with U.S. Attorneys. The attendant political and media circus will erect its tent and bring in the clowns a week from today.

We’re told that Mr. A.G. unexpectedly had to clear his calendar completely for the last three days and the next seven days because things aren’t going well the in the “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” department. Participants in the remaking project are indicating to the media that Mr. Gonzales is finding it difficult to make his practice answers consistent, complete, coherent and convincing. The “C” words these participants are using to describe the preparation are “contradictory” and “confusing”.

My question is: why? The subject of his testimony is pretty straightforward: what did he do; when did he do it; why did he do it; and who else was involved in the decision? These aren’t trick questions. Assuming his memory is somewhat better than his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, who offered up more than 120 “I don’t recall” responses during his senate testimony, Mr. A.G. doesn’t have to address anything other than his role in an event that only occurred a few months ago. Why does someone with his intelligence and experience have to undergo two solid weeks of preparation for this appearance?

My answer is: the truth in this case is a serious problem for the White House and the political pressure to spin the truth violently is creating inconsistent, incomplete, incoherent and unconvincing responses from a witness who is being called upon to protect the White House. If this was just about the AG and DOJ business, Mr. A.G. should be able to get through his testimony with minimal prep work.

Instead, he’s being called up to sweep the trail for the two remaining members of the domestic axis of evil, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove (the third axis member, Don Rumsfeld, having already bit the dust after face planting on the un-swept Baghdad trail). Mr. Gonzales should be very concerned about the sound of the chainsaw he undoubtedly hears in the background. Just as Scooter Libby and Kyle Sampson were expected to hang the White House garbage out on the distant end of a limb, Mr. Gonzales’ is now being sent up the same tree with the same mission.

His chief liaison with the White House, Monica Gooding, resigned preemptively and seized the beloved Fifth Amendment with a white-knuckled death grip. “You’ll get this testimony when you pry it from my cold, dead head!” she was heard to exclaim on the way out the door. That leaves no one other than Mr. A.G. to either twist in the wind under the limb he’s on or to watch that menacing chainsaw cut him down like the piece of White House firewood he’s likely to become.

There may be those who feel that Mr. A.G. should be prepped like any witness getting ready to testify. Of course, he isn’t just another witness – he’s the Attorney General of the United States and a former White House Counsel and member of the Texas Supreme Court. He doesn’t need to be trained in how to respond to the big bad attorneys who might ask him tricky questions designed to trap the unwashed, the unwary or the uninitiated. He needs two weeks of preparation so that he can be trained in how to respond to the big bad senators who might ask him hard questions designed to trap the untruthful.