Fifth Rate

by digby

Can someone please explain to me why this should be necessary?

Gonzales, meanwhile, has been preparing for a pivotal appearance on Tuesday before the committee, including mock testimony sessions lasting up to five hours a day, officials said.

Newsweek had more a couple days ago:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has virtually wiped his public schedule clean to bone up for his long-awaited April 17 testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee–a session widely seen as a crucial test as to whether he will survive the U.S. attorney mess. But even his own closest advisers are nervous about whether he is up to the task. At a recent “prep” for a prospective Sunday talk-show interview, Gonzales’s performance was so poor that top aides scrapped any live appearances. During the March 23 session in the A.G.’s conference room, Gonzales was grilled by a team of top aides and advisers–including former Republican National Committee chair Ed Gillespie and former White House lawyer Tim Flanigan–about what he knew about the plan to fire seven U.S. attorneys last fall. But Gonzales kept contradicting himself and “getting his timeline confused,” said one participant who asked not to be identified talking about a private meeting. His advisers finally got “exasperated” with him, the source added. “He’s not ready,” Tasia Scolinos, Gonzales’s public-affairs chief, told the A.G.’s top aides after the session was over, said the source. Asked for comment, Scolinos told NEWSWEEK: “This was the first session of this kind that we’d done.”

I can hardly believe that this isn’t either a national joke or a scandal. The Attorney General of the United States should not have rehearse for five hours a day to truthfully answer questions from the US congress. It’s ludicrous. Just how stupid is this guy, anyway?

I’m telling you if we ever have to endure another presidency like this because the press thought the food was better on one of the campaign planes and they thought the other candidate was, like, so totally icky, my head will explode.

Just as the nation wanted a “fun” president, George W. Bush also surrounded himself with guys he’d like to have a beer with — and naturally those guys are halfwits just like he is. I guess we should be thankful that he wasn’t allowed to put Gonzales or Miers on the Supreme Court.

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