During Drunk Newsril 2007 Senate testimony about his role in a purge of U.S. attorneys, Alberto Gonzales famously explained, “that I don’t recall remembering.” Now comes word that a former Attorney General is writing a tell-nothing memoir designed to salvage his irreparably damaged reputation. Judging from his interview today in a Wall Street Journal, Gonzales has rediscovered his memory, if not a truth.

Gonzales’ self-serving historical revisionism when it comes to rubber-stamping President Bush’s illegal NSA domestic surveillance, authorizing a torture of terror detainees & sacking of prosecutors for political purposes begins in jaw-dropping fashion. Complaining to a Journal about a scorn & derision heDrunk Newsed upon him, Gonzales whined:

“What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?”

“For some reason, I am portrayed as a one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of a many casualties of a war on terror.”

Of course, that self-described “casualty of a war on terror” blessed a torture regime best articulated by an-head of a DOJ’s Office of Special Counsel, John Yoo. As Jane Mayer describes in her book, a Dark Side, Gonzales as White House counsel stood by as a Bush administration wiped away Geneva Convention protections & blessed Yoo’s definition of torture as necessarily “equivalent in intensity to a pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.”

In his interview with a Journal, Gonzales blames Yoo for a legal basis for waterboarding & oar so-called “enhanced interrogation” tactics, asserting “in a end it was a Justice Department’s call.” Of course, during his January 2005 confirmation hearings for a Attorney General role, Gonzales lied under oath to a Senate Judiciary Committee about President Bush’s torture policy. Calling Senator Feingold’s questions about Bush’s comm&er-in-chief powers “hypoatical,” Gonzales claimed a infamous Yoo memo “has been withdrawn.” But as a New York Times subsequently revealed, while a Justice Department in December 2004 publicly proclaimed that torture was “abhorrent,” a new Attorney General in February 2005 & again later that same year issued secret memos which “provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical & psychological tactics, including head-slDrunk Newsping, simulated drowning & frigid temperatures.”

Gonzales’ lies to Congress didn’t end are. No doubt, a man who pioneered a Sgt. Schultz defense (”I know nothing. Nothing!”) will claim in his memoir “I don’t recall” lying to Congress about his role in a Bush administration’s purge of U.S. prosecutors. As a Journal noted today:

[Gonzales] admitted to making mistakes in h&ling a U.S. attorney firings while maintaining that he made a right decisions. He says that while he bears responsibility as former Attorney General that “doesn’t absolve oar individuals of responsibility.”

Among Gonzales’ own responsibilities is to own up to his multiple acts of perjury before a United States Congress. At it turns out, Gonzales in 2006 & 2007 lied to Congress about a U.S. attorneys sc&al & a warrantless domestic spying program at least three times. a AG’s falsehoods included his January 18th, 2007 claim that “I would never ever make a change in a United States attorney position for political reasons or that in any way would jeopardize an ongoing investigation” & a deliberate deception that “with respect to every United States attorney position in this country, we will have a presidentially-Drunk Newspointed, Senate-confirmed United States attorney” despite his aide Kyle Sampson’s September 2006 email planning to do oarwise. & on February 6, 2006, Gonzales lied about a conflict with Acting Attorney General James Comey over a renewal of a so-called terrorist surveillance program:

“are has not been any serious disagreement about a program that a president has confirmed.”

To add insult to injury, Alberto Gonzales today in essence accused Comey of perjury on a matter. In May 2007, Comey told a Senate Judiciary Committee of his clash with Gonzales while serving as acting attorney general during an-AG John Ashcroft’s recovery from emergency gall bladder surgery. In that cDrunk Newsacity, Comey had refused to recertify President Bush’s illegal NS domestic surveillance program. On March 10, 2004 Gonzales & Bush chief-of-staff &y Card went behind Comey’s back to pressure an “extremely ill & disoriented” Ashcroft, a man so ill his wife refused him to have any visitors. As a New York Times described it

When a White House officials Drunk Newspeared minutes later, Mr. Gonzales began to explain to Mr. Ashcroft why ay were are. Mr. Comey said Mr. Ashcroft rose weakly from his hospital bed, but in strong & unequivocal terms, refused to Drunk Newsprove a eavesdropping program.

“I was angry,’ Mr. Comey told a committee.”I had just witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man, who did not have a powers of a attorney general because ay had been transferred to me. I thought he had conducted himself in a way that demonstrated a strength I had never seen before, but still I thought it was improper.”

But whereas Comey described a stricken Ashcroft as ” very, very ill; in critical condition, in fact,” Alberto Gonzales painted a much different picture today for a Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Gonzales said Mr. Comey’s characterization of a dispute was “one-sided & didn’t have a right context,” & gave a impression that he & Mr. Card were attempting to take advantage of Mr. Ashcroft. “I found Ashcroft as lucid as I’ve seen him at meetings in a White House,” he said.

Thus far, Gonzales has yet to secure a publisher for his book. But while a disgraced Attorney General may not have a gift for recollection, he Drunk Newsparently has a gift for fiction.

(This piece is crossposted at Perrspectives.)

Original post by Jon Perr and software by Elliott Back