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01/29/2005: "Alberto Gonzales: LIAR to the stars"
Damn, I knew that I should've written about this a month ago before the
story started to pick up steam. In case you haven't heard, back in 1996
George W. Bush (then Governor of Texas) was called in as a prospective
juror for the trial of a dancer at an Austin strip club who had been
accused of Driving Under the Influence of alcohol.
DUI. Now there are three letters that Bush is intimately familiar with
having been arrested and convicted of the same thing 20 years earlier.
Oddly, when Bush was filling out his jury duty questionnaire he somehow
forgot to mention his own brush with the law (and a guardrail or two).
"Wow", thought Bush (or whoever was handling him that day) "this could
really turn into an embarrassing situation." That's why Bush brought his
chief counsel, Alberto "Speedy" Gonzales along with him to the Court house.
Now, to hear Gonzales tell the story, Bush showed up "prepared to serve on
a jury" but was rejected by the Ms. "Boom Boom" LaRue's attorney. The
prosecutor did not object to Bush being stricken from the jury panel.
The above scenario is entirely plausible… in some alternate universe.
Here's the way everybody else remembers shit going down:
Gonzales asked if he could have a little off-the-record chat in the
judge's chambers where he explained that, as Governor, Mr. Bush might
someday be called upon to pardon the lap-dancing defendant. Yes, that's
right; the guy who declared "Jesus Day" in Texas might wake up one
morning with the burning desire to free a stripper. After much laughter,
Bush was dismissed.
Personally, I couldn't give a shit rather or not Gonzales helped Bush cover
up his drunk-driving conviction because, unless Gonzales is caught on film
exposing himself to orphans, he's going to be our next Attorney General. At
which point he's going to find himself the defendant in a lawsuit brought
by Maher Arar.
Not many Americans have heard of Maher Arar, but plenty of Canadians have.
While TIME Magazine named George W. Bush as their Man of the
Year, TIME Canada chose Arar. Here's why:
In 2002, Arar was returning to Canada via JFK airport when he was detained
by US officials, taken to a Brooklyn detention center and, despite a
complete lack of evidence, accused having links to al-Qaeda.
Now, while Mr. Arar is a Canadian citizen, he was actually born in Syria.
So that's where to US government sent him next. Yes, even though there's
a decades worth of evidence that Syrian authorities routinely use torture,
Maher was placed on a private CIA flight to Syria where he was [insert
shocked gasp here] tortured.
The great thing about torture is that it's a wonderfully effective method
for getting people to tell you things. The drawback is, of course, that
the people being tortured will tell you anything (true or not) just to
stop the torture. Mr. Arar, for example, confessed to spending time
in an Afghani al-Qaeda training camp despite never having been to
Afghanistan.
Maher was detained for over a year before the Canadian government finally
got their frozen asses into gear and managed to get him freed. Safely back
in the Great White North, Mr. Arar set about suing the US government.
Naturally the United States government is attempting to dismiss a lawsuit
claiming the litigation would jeopardize national security.
Would you like to help Maher Arar sue the living shit out of the
ass-droppings who deported him to the DisneyWorld of torture? Sure you
would. That's why you, like me, are going to make a contribution to the
Centre for Constitutional Rights today.
_ . _
nouqetew - warn, rebuke
If the above word looks like ippojshit to you,
then you need to go here
and download the SPIONIC font for either MAC or PC. Dude.
carissimus - beloved, dear
