For old times' sake: Alberto Gonzales, Zen master

By Dahlia Lithwick, Slate Magazine:

Alberto Gonzales is in his happy place. He enters the hearing room in the Rayburn Building for his testimony before the House judiciary committee smiling the smile of a man who sleeps well each night, in the warm glow of the president's love. Gone is the testy, defensive Gonzales who testified last month before the Senate. Today's attorney general breezes into the chamber with the certain knowledge that having bottomed out in April, he has nothing left to prove. His only role in this scandal is as decoy: He's the guy who runs out in front of the hunters and draws their fire so nobody pays any attention to what's happening at the White House.

Gonzales seems to have made his peace with this. No more angry outbursts, no bitter attempts at self-justification. Instead, the AG answers some questions with a giggle and most others with the same old catchphrases we've heard so often. ...

Robert Wexler, D-Fla., finally loses his temper and starts hollering: 'You did not select Iglesias for the list.' (No). 'Did Sampson select him?' (No). 'Did Comey?' (No.) 'Did McNulty?' (No.) Did the president? (No.) 'Did the vice president? (No).' Then Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., follows up with one of the best queries of the day: 'If you don't know who put Iglesias on the list, how do you know the president or the vice president didn't?'

Long silence. Pause. 'They wouldn't do that,' hems Gonzales. 'The White House has said publicly that it was not involved in adding or deleting people from the list.' Someone needs to tell that to Kyle Sampson. And as for Gonzales, he has made himself immortal by merely willing himself to be so. That must be what accounts for his Zenlike state today. It's an ingenious strategy. Instead of letting the president throw him under the bus to protect Karl Rove, Gonzales just lies down in the road, then giggles as the bus runs over his head.