Thursday Roundup: Gonzo's Just Confusing

To all of you who were concerned that the nation's law enforcement was headed by a man with no compunction about lying under oath, worry no longer: Alberto Gonzales wasn't lying — he was unintentionally confusing.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, he explained:

"I recognize that the use of the term 'Terrorist Surveillance Program' and my shorthand reference to the 'program' publicly 'described by the President' may have created confusion, particularly for those who are knowledgeable about the NSA activities authorized in the presidential order described by the DNI [director of national intelligence], and who may be accustomed to thinking of them or referring to them together as a single NSA 'program,' " Gonzales wrote.

So he seems to be claiming that, when he was answering questions before the committee, he was at times referring specifically to the warrantless wiretapping problem that has caused such a ruckus, and at other times talking about the entire blanket of programs which is more specifically called the Terrorist Surveillance Program.

Leahy, understandably, was not pleased:

As the heat turns up on Gonzales, the attorney general offered to give Leahy a special briefing.

But Leahy declined.

"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," Leahy said.

"It is time for full candor to enforce the law and promote justice, rather than word parsing."

Unfortunately, word parsing is all we've been getting, and despite all efforts to try to circumvent that, it seems like the courts will be our only chance to get this resolved.

Hot on the heels of the subpoena of White House Advisor Karl Rove to testify before Congress on the politically motivated firing of nine U.S. attorneys, President Bush proves that, for all his flaws, he is at least remarkably consistent: He ordered Rove to refuse to testify due to executive privilege. Yes, this is indeed a Harriet Miers/Josh Bolten reprise. And if that trend follows, I can imagine that Karl Rove will be cited for contempt of Congress. And then the Justice Department will refuse to enforce the citation, and we are left with yet another item for everyone to discuss on the trip to the courtroom to get all of this settled.

In the meanwhile, the House has been passing a number of domestic policy bills in the past few days, making up for the some of the time lost due to the highly polarizing and controversial topics they have been dealing with for a few weeks. The Gavel, the blog for the Speaker of the House, has the details on what was passed.

Obama tried to shore up his foreign policy cred yesterday after having taken a beating regarding his answer in the last primary debate regarding holding meetings with heads of state of a number of current American "enemies," after which Clinton and Edwards pointed out that unilaterally agreeing to meet with those leaders without some assurance of progress is folly, and which subsequently led to Obama being labeled as naive and inexperienced. In a speech at the Woodrow Wilson Center yesterday, Obama said that he would refocus the war on terror on Afghanistan and Pakistan, whether or not Pakistani President Musharraf was in on it:

"There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans," he said. "They are plotting to strike again. . . . If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

Governor Richardson and Senator Edwards, among others, took exception to unilateral action, saying that military options should be a last resort after all diplomatic attempts had failed. Clinton did not disagree with Obama, which is not surprising considering that she has been running as the "tough on terror" Democrat since the beginning of her campaign — but what is surprising is that now The Hill has said that she is "...follow[ing] Obama's lead." Seems a strange thing to say about someone who has been so consistent on her message. I suppose time will bear out whether or not the characterization sticks.

I can't imagine Tom Delay has very many friends left. At very least, it would seem that there aren't many in Texas: Travis County prosecutors trying to get Tom Delay's indictment reinstated with the Court of Criminal Appeals were joined in their attempts by State Prosecuting Attorney Jeffrey Van Horn, who filed an amicus brief in favor of overturning the court's earlier ruling to throw out the indictment. I wonder if that would impact his book sales?

Finally today, the TEA's ratings of public schools statewide is out, and it's a mixed bag. Houston schools seem to be up, Fort Worth schools are down, and Dallas schools are also mostly down, with many schools dropping from "recognized" to "acceptable" ratings but some schools climbing to "exemplary" to partially offset that drop. Schools farther north of the Metroplex fared better.