Poor Poor Pitiful Me

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had lunch with the Wall Street Journal recently and raised a couple of questions that have been nagging him. Well, questions are what we do around here, kids, so we're pleased to help out:

"What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?" he said during an interview Tuesday, offering his most extensive comments since leaving government.

Well, for starters, Al, let's go back to this handy chart. Your name's in the center, having had your fingers into the authorizing of:

• Warrantless wiretapping
• Coercive interrogation (we prefer the less polite term "torture")
• The CIA's destruction of tapes of "coercive interrogations"
• Hiring political hacks to fill the ranks at the DoJ
• Firing U.S. Attorneys who were insufficiently political
  

That was easy, wasn't it? (Here's a friendly tip regarding #2: Stay in the U.S.. For the rest of your life.) The next one's even easier.

During a lunch meeting two blocks from the White House, where he served under his longtime friend, President George W. Bush, Mr. Gonzales said that "for some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror."

You poor baby.

Alberto, this goes beyond disagreement. When you're formulating policies that are evil, such as torture, you get portrayed as evil. Comes with the territory.

Oh yeah, we had a question our own selves. Mr. Gonzales also mentioned that he's writing a book about his time in office, which brings us to This Week's Discussion Question:

How can someone who, while under oath, couldn't remember a damned thing, write a freaking memoir?

Please keep the discussion civil and feel free to wander off into suggesting a title for former AG AG's misty water-colored memories.

Discuss.

Beginnings

News of the passing of Mark Felt, Watergate's "Deep Throat", reminded us of how the TWDQ concept originated, so we thought we'd share that historic moment with our faithful readers. (We should really have the three of you over for dinner sometime.)

Shortly after Mr. Felt acknowledged that he was the character who surreptitiously fed Bob Woodward information that helped him and colleague Carl Bernstein unravel the scandal, we ranted to some close friends on YahooGroups. We remember it like it was only yesterday (rub chin, dissolve to flashback):

After catching a few episodes over the past few days of yammering pundits kicking about the ethics of Deep Throat's actions in a darkened D.C. parking garage in 1973, here's today's discussion question:

"If I take Chuck Colson or G. Gordon Liddy's opinions on Mark 'Deep Throat' Felt to my local coffee house, how much cash will I still have to come up with for a $1.60 cup of java?"

Please do not wander off into "When Vincent Bugliosi dies, will they go to Charlie Manson for his thoughts, too?" or "Mr. Colson, would you ask the president that 'Do the ends justify the means?' question you asked Mr. Ben-Veniste this morning, with reference to either Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, or the Downing Street Memo?"

We now return you to This Week's Discussion Question, already in progress.

Update: Fixed the blockquote so IE doesn't splatter it across the screen.

Boom Boom

At this moment, Sen. Norm Coleman's lead over him, Al Franken, in the MN Senate recount has dropped to single digits--single digits that one could count on one hand--as the Canvassing Board plows through Norm's stack of challenged ballots. This doesn't bode well for the senator's reelection bid, so here's a "Senator Al Franken" edition of This Week's Discussion Question:

What kind of sound will Sean Hannity's head make when it explodes?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into, well, fits of giggling.

Discuss.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today's the third anniversary of TWDQ and we just happen to have a birthday-themed question to kick off the fourth year of This Week's Discussion Question:

What kind of idiot would decorate a baby's birthday cake with a swastika?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "When you name your kids 'Adolf Hitler', "Aryan Nations', and 'Honszlynn Hinler' (because it sounds like 'Heinrich Himmler' but that isn't quite appropriate for a girl, is it now?), doesn't that blow your claim to any kind of superiority?"

Discuss

Happy Birthday

I'm going to step out of the first person plural for a moment to mark what would have been my dad's 78th birthday.

One of the many gifts he gave me was a love of this artist, so here's a 78 for your 78th, Dad:

Lipstick Sunset

As the clock runs out on the reign of Bush the Younger, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes are apparently hanging out at the White House attempting to craft a glittering narrative for the past eight years, and we'd be remiss if we didn't honor this project with a fresh episode of This Week's Discussion Question:

Just how much lipstick can one put on a pig?

Please keep the discussion civil and do not wander off into "I'll bet you hear more 'ummmm's in there than at a transcendental meditation retreat" or "I got your legacy right here, Junior"

Discuss.