On April 19th, the Attorney General of the United States appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about the firing of eight prosecutors. In five hours of testimony, the Attorney General, Alberto Gonzalez, was not very helpful in that he said on more than 70 occasions, “I can’t recall.” Two weeks earlier, his Chief of Staff appeared before the same committee and told the committee that he could not recall answers to questions on 125 occasions. As you can see, the Senate Judiciary Committee got little information from the Attorney General or from his Chief of Staff. Why the prosecutors were fired remains a great mystery even to this day.
Prior to becoming the Attorney General, Alberto was the personal lawyer for George W. Bush. In that role, Alberto declared that the Geneva Convention was “quaint” and need not be obeyed or observed.
Mr. Gonzalez also recommended enhanced interrogation techniques which many independent observers consider to be forms of torture. This led to the scandal at Abu Ghraib. In short, Alberto provided the legal basis for whatever George Bush wished to do.
In spite of the fact that Alberto’s testimony has led to the call for his ouster from several members of both political parties, the Great Decider has announced that his testimony only “increased his faith in Alberto’s ability to do the Attorney General’s job.” Mr. Bush said that Alberto answered every question “the best he could,” from which most independent observers would conclude that his best was pathetic. Nonetheless, Mr. Bush seems intent upon keeping Gonzalez and his forgettery around because Bush and the neocons think up wild ideas and Gonzalez provides the legal basis to underpin them.
I have had access to the same superb intelligence services that contended that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and which also contended that we would be welcomed as liberators there. Those same intelligence sources report the following colloquy between Alberto and his wife. Her full name is Armadillo Amarillo Anesthesia de Cinco de Mayo. The first letters of her three given names start with an A, so Alberto refers to her as “3 A’s.” She refers to him as AG, which stands of course for Attorney General. So here is the plot of the play that my infallible intelligence sources have reported to me.
3 A’s: Alberto, you are just arriving home at 10:30 at night. Can you tell me where you have been?
AG: I don’t know. I don’t recall.
3 A’s: News reports on television and the radio said that you spent the afternoon and evening firing your secretary of 25 years, the office boy who has been with you for 15 years, the man who hands out the towels in the men’s restroom, and the parking lot attendant at the Department of Justice building, as well as four attorneys. Can you tell me why you fired all those people?
AG: I don’t know. Nobody tells me anything. I may have heard rumors of their being fired, but I don’t put faith in rumors. So the answer to your question is, I can’t recall.
3 A’s: Surely, you must have a reason for firing your secretary after all these years and the office boy. How come you can’t recall it?
AG: All I can tell you is that I can’t recall any of that, but they needed to be fired. I didn’t know any of the details or any of the conversations that led to the firings but I can tell you that all of those people needed to be fired. It was a matter of National Security.
3 A’s: I can’t believe that you have been so cruel, particularly to the elderly gentleman who hands out the towels in the men’s restroom. But let’s move on to another subject. I found in your possession an American Express receipt for $400 from the “E Street Gato Casa” here in Washington. The receipt says “for services rendered.” What kind of services were those?
AG: Somebody must have stuck that receipt in my coat pocket. I know nothing about it so I can’t recall anything.
3 A’s: The fact is, I didn’t find the receipt in your coat pocket; I found it in your wallet.
AG: Oh, yes, I believe it was for a haircut.
3 A’s: Four hundred dollars for a haircut? That is hard to believe. And furthermore unless my Spanish has gone awry, Gato Casa means cathouse. It appears to your ever-loving wife that you spent the afternoon and evening in the E Street Cathouse. Is that true?
AG: Now that you have refreshed my memory, I will tell you the whole story. In the last few days, the Department of Health has determined that tainted cat food from Communist Red China is killing pets in this country. As you know, we have two beloved cats named Fido and Rover. I went to the cathouse to see about how we could avoid giving them tainted food. When I entered the cathouse, there was a large luxurious living room and a grand piano. The piano player told me that he had no idea about what was going on upstairs, but perhaps the girls were putting cat food into the cans. The piano player assured me that if Fido and Rover showed any signs of sickness, they should be rushed to the Walter Reade Army Hospital or to the nearest Veteran’s Administration facility. So that is what prompted my long visit to the Gato Casa.
3 A’s: Your explanation is only partially satisfactory, but I have other things to tell you. This afternoon I invited Paul Wolfowitz, the President of the World Bank, and his girl friend, to whom he gave a $60,000 raise, to come over for dinner on Saturday night. I plan to serve them the luscious pork roast that I found at the Kroger Meat Market.
AG: I usually can’t recall these things but Wolfowitz is probably Jewish and his girl friend is a Libyan, which probably makes her a Muslim. I doubt that they will eat much of the pork roast.
3 A’s: Well, in that case, they can fill themselves with the shell fish that I had planned to serve as an appetizer. Now, before we go to sleep, I want to ask you, Alberto, the Attorney General, do you still love me?
AG: That is hard to say because I can’t recall. Maybe I do and maybe I don’t. But taking one thing with another, you should not regard this as a vote of no confidence. It is simply a matter that I cannot recall.
So you see, Alberto’s recollections are faulty, which causes him to say that he can’t recall much of anything except for the dietary habits of Muslims and Jews. This, of course, is why this essay is called “Alberto’s Forgettery.” Based on his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I believe it would be fair to say that his forgettery is a hell of a lot better than his memory.
But remember Alberto’s testimony caused George Bush to say that he had increased confidence in Alberto’s ability to run the Attorney General’s office. It will be interesting to see if George Bush still embraces Alberto after his White House liaison, Miss Goodling, invokes her fifth amendment privileges when she appears before the Senate Judiciary
Committee. Fellow citizens: this is what we need at this crucial hour in our history. It is an Attorney General who can recall nothing and his White House liaison taking the fifth amendment to avoid prosecution for lying before she has even testified. When the President of the United States praises a man who has told the Judiciary Committee on more than 70 occasions that he can’t recall the answer to a question, I would suggest that the man who hands out the towels in the Department of Justice men’s restroom might be a good replacement for Alberto and his forgettery.
E. E. CARR
April 26, 2007
Essay 250
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Kevin’s commentary: So I happen to be doing this essay on a plane up to Pop’s place. Consequently I don’t have access to the internet, or rather I am too stingy to pony up $11.50 an hour to connect. Without the internet I lack the capacity to investigate whether or not all the other people who were mentioned in this story actually got fired, or if that was a matter of Pop’s invention. A tragic case indeed.
In related news, there exists an enjoyable film called “Memento,” which tells the story of a man with anterograde amnesia, a condition which prevents him from making new memories. The movie details his struggle to get revenge on someone and his problems with finding that person and deciphering why exactly he needs to exact revenge upon him. It’s all very nice and action packed, but I can’t help but wonder if the Gonzalez version of Memento would be even better.
Picture this: you are in a limo on the way to the White House. You have no idea how you got in the limo. You get out and are taken to the oval office, where a man starts asking you questions. Apparently some people got fired recently and you had something to do with it. What’s the big deal about some people getting fired? Who is this guy anyway? Context clues tell you that he’s important, but it takes you a few minutes to piece together that he’s the President. Shit, I must really be in some trouble, you think. He tells you what to say and how to behave, but the minute you walk out the door his instructions have escaped your memory. The next thing you know you’re in court. You’ve forgotten why you’re there. People are asking about some sort of firings. What’s the big deal about some people getting fired? You want to build some huge elaborate lie – you like that, and it used to come so easily to you – but that’s dangerous here. You couldn’t even keep your story consistent for fifteen minutes. So you do the only thing you can: you tell the truth. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”
Court lets out for the day. You’re put in another limo. You get on your phone to check the news — apparently there was some big hearing today. Seems like the attorney general of the United States fired a bunch of prosecutors and then couldn’t produce a single reason why. Kept saying he couldn’t remember anything about the incident. You feel bad for the guy, you’ve got memory problems too.