Alberto Gonzales and Other Grotesque Mixtures

Bad news! If someone has called you the "Alberto Gonzales" of professors, students, your workplace, writers, travellers, your car pool, or your family, they didn't mean it as a compliment.

Alberto Gonzales has replaced Mike Brown of Katrina-incompetence fame as the gold standard for incompetence in the Bush administration which itself is the gold standard of incompetence for American presidencies. Last week, David Broder labored to make an analogy between Gonzales and Harry Reid's statement that the Iraq war was lost. Of course, I don't remember when telling the truth became a sign of incompetence. Maybe Broder is the "Alberto Gonzales of columnists" instead.

But what does it mean to be the "Alberto Gonzales" of something. Six former CIA agents take a stab at defining Gonzales-ness in a letter criticizing George Tenet for his role in justifying the Iraq invasion. Tenet was "the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community-- a grotesque mixture of incompetence and sycophancy shielded by a genial personality." What made Tenet the "Alberto Gonzales of intelligence" was that he didn't resign when he realized the extent to which Dick Cheney was lying to justify an invasion. Cheney himself is grotesquely incompetent enough to be the "Alberto Gonzales of Vice-Presidents," but he does not have a genial enough personality (or the squeaky, high-pitched "man's man" voice) to really reach the Gonzales standard of ineptitude. Maybe the next politician who lies our nation into a failed war and then shoots one of his friends will be known as the "new Dick Cheney, a grotesque mixture of incompetence and bitterness fueled by his arrogant disdain for anything limiting his power."

Ultimately though, it will be George Bush who serves as the signature "grotesque mixture" of the "Bush era." In the final analysis, the horrors of Mike Brown, Alberto Gonzales, Condoleeza Rice, Karl Rove, and Dick Cheney are all reflections of George W. Bush's own qualities. Bush's grotesque mixture of incompetence, petulance, and frat boy smugness will long serve as a negative reference point in American life.

That will be the main way we remember not to elect another George W. Bush as president. The Dems should start framing Rudy Giuliani as the "George Bush of Republican candidates" now.

Why wait?