Wednesday Roundup: Alberto Is Watching You

Yesterday Attorney General Alberto Gonzales went before Congress — again — to testify about attorney firings, surveillance, and the pressuring of a bed-ridden John Ashcroft.

The Washington Post informs us that things got bad for Gonzales during the hearing, with discussions opening up about the possibility of a special prosecutor getting in on the attorney firings investigation. Also, these are the kinds of things US Senators from the Judiciary Committee said to Gonzales:

"I do not find your testimony credible, candidly," said Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), who became visibly angry at several points during his exchanges with Gonzales. "The committee's going to review your testimony very carefully to see if your credibility has been breached to the point of being actionable."

Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) told Gonzales bluntly: "I don't trust you."

That's a beating, and it can't be pleasant for Gonzales. I still can't believe he hasn't bailed out or been canned.

In other judiciary matters, Texas Supreme Court Justice Nathan Hecht is having some problems of his own. Texas Watch filed an official complaint over Hecht's acceptance of $100,000 off on legal fees he owed after an ethics squabble. This is a story that keeps popping up and with something on the books it isn't likely to go away. The result won't be some huge, exemplifying sentence or anything — the offense alleged, "accepting a gift from a party who the judge knows is likely to appear before him," is a misdemeanor — but it still brings a point to bear about how things ought to be done in the judicial system.

It isn't exactly immigration news, but the Star Telegram reports that Pilgrim's Pride has started terminating undocumented workers from its facility in East Texas, and that has given rise to speculation that a massive crackdown on undocumented workers is coming soon. There have been raids before, but the article contains some expert opinion that seems to lean towards "sky is falling" and perhaps even "get ready for the undocumented worker legal crackdown equivalent of Armageddon" or something. If Homeland Security really starts fining companies 10k per illegal employee (as is proposed) and then actually starts enforcing it, you can expect the business lobby to go berserk.

Two presidential news items to take us home: First, Obama and Hillary spent most of yesterday arguing about who had the better idea on when to meet crazy foreign heads of state. Senator Clinton called Obama's answer naive, which in direct comparisons between Obama and Clinton comes out as a zinger with just a little bit of stinger. If you're into primary politics where there's some fierce competing happening without a lot of violent rhetorical bloodletting, this article is for you.

Lastly, we haven't talked about Fred Thompson in a while because he hasn't done much in a while. He was rumored to be getting in around July 4th and that didn't happen, so yesterday he took the next logical step and started firing non-campaign campaign staff. Tom Collamore was "moved to an advisory role," which in presidential politics might as well read the same as "locked in a utility closet."

He was replaced by Randy Enwright, whom not many of us have heard of, either. I think some shine has come off the Thompson star and this doesn't help anything. My first thought was a comparison to McCain when I read the lede, and the second part of the story is subtitled "Straight-Talk-Style problems?" So there you go, people: Fred McThompson, coming at you on the Law and Order Express™.