Hmm. Is Alberto Gonzales Funny?

I like to set challenges for myself like that. In the past I have tried to find funny things to say about such ordinarily non-funny subjects as agony, Beacon Hill, bumvertising, and contusions, to name a few. People wonder why I push myself so hard to find humor where it doesn't stick. I point to Catch-22's Orr.

Yossarian, the main character of Catch-22, says of bomber-pilot Orr that he hasn't got brains enough to be unhappy. Orr's planes get shot down more than any other pilot's, but he never minds and greets each new assignment with cheerful enthusiasm. Why? He must be crazy! Doesn't he know he's going to die?

Well, it turns out, he was practicing, so he could get himself shot down in the Baltic Sea close enough to swim to Sweden. Likewise I'm practicing so when the Grim Reaper comes to get me I can laugh at his ass and go out giggling. Alberto Gonzales is just a stand-in for Death.

Here's something funny-ironic. Gonzales grew up in Humble, Texas! Ha! I guess he's trying to get as far from his roots as he possibly can.

In 1996, Alberto Gonzales helped get the Governor of Texas George W. Bush out of jury duty in a drunk-driving case. Among other things he said Bush couldn't serve on the case because he might later be called upon to pardon the accused. An argument so broad it would pretty much excuse all governors and presidents from all jury duty, even where there's no exemption in law. An argument that neglected to mention that Bush had been convicted of drunk-driving. The defense attorney in the case called Gonzales' arguments "laughable!" So we're on the right track! We need to find more stuff Gonzales has done for W!

Speaking of Death, Gonzales was in charge of reviewing death row cases subject to clemency by Governor Bush. Thanks in part to his diligent disregard of most of those cases, the Bush & Gonzales term in Texas is credited with overseeing more executions than in any state ever, in any equal period of time. That's a record you can go to the White House on. I do think, though, they should have taken more care not to execute so many of the feeble of mind, because that could come back to haunt them later.

I'm specifically thinking of Alberto's prize observations this January on the legal theory and practice concerning the writ of habeas corpus. He said, to Congress, that "there is no express grant of habeas in the Constitution. There is [only] a prohibition against taking it away." Now, I don't really believe that Gonzales is so feeble-minded. I think he was just dishing out scraps of offal to our Representatives just to watch them have to eat it. But not everyone would give him the benefit of the doubt as I would. They might think, "Alberto Gonzales isn't shining us on; that would mean he was showing contempt for Congress; that cannot be. Therefore he must be dumb as a rock."

Now Gonzales has exploited a recent amendment to the PATRIOT Act to fire a bunch of US attorneys, more and more of whom we are finding out happened to have resisted Republican pressures to prosecute Democrats. This is funnier than it first appears. It's like when some character in a farce methodically places a banana peel on the floor in the middle of the stage just before another character is due to make his entry. This is called comedic irony, wherein the audience knows someone is going to slip and fall and gets to tittering over the comedic suspense. It's really hilarious when it's the jerk who set the banana peel who finally slips on it.

Of course the fall shouldn't happen too soon, you want to draw it out. Bush & Gonzales should work on their timing.