Cat Isn't Alone On The Hot Tin Roof

Talk about a bad hair day. The United States Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, couldn't suppress his stress during testimony before the U.S. Senate. He must have wanted to borrow Maggie's line, "You know what I feel like? I feel all the time like a cat on a hot tin roof."

Gonzales is no amateur at speaking. With degrees from Rice and Harvard it is usually with ease that eloquent responses roll off his tongue, but he didn't look so good last Thursday.

Senate interrogators spat blazing fire. It was similar to a flame breathing 1970's Kiss performance. If you want to learn how to be direct or to urge over sixty politically correct I don't recalls in one session, then the place to do it is at a Senate hearing. Gonzales dug in his heels hoping to hang on to his job. Turns out that it was soft soil. It is likely that he has checked out Vinson & Elkins Law Firm to see if a bullet-torn replica of himself can come on home. Otherwise, maybe Harriet will gently lead him by the hand as she returns to her 400 attorney law firm, Locke Liddell & Sapp. (Yes, it really is Sapp.)

Gonzales boiled with anger. The kind of anger that pours from deep within the soul. The white anger that turns to rage if control is lost. The problem is he is trying to avoid the sword and protect the Pres, too.

He is George W.'s boy from way back. As Governor, Bush anointed him General Counsel and later appointed him to the Texas Supreme Court. Then, they trotted off to D.C. and Bush took up the Presidential role and appointed Gonzales U. S. Attorney General. Peas in a pod.

Gonzales quickly lost credibility with Senate members and observers because he flatly refused to objectively discuss facts surrounding the dismissal of the Righteous Eight United States Attorneys. When pressed, and oh, he was pressed, Gonzales decried the Righteous had on occasion engaged in the exercise of poor judgment. Goodness gracious, great balls of fire! U. S. Attorneys have always been blessed to pleasure themselves that way.

By the way, Michael A. Battle said he had never known anything about performance problems. He ought to know. He was the hatchet man.

Were Brick Pollitt to lend wisdom to Gonzales, he would urge, "Cats jump off roofs and land uninjured. Do it. Jump."

Vermont senators voted to impeach Bush and Chaney, but the vote isn't binding. Remind anyone of swatting at flies and missing?

Here's one for you. When is a guilty verdict a win for the defendant? When you are Mary Winkler, the former wife of a Tennessee Church of Christ minister. While Gonzales and U.S. Senators spewed back and forth, and Vermont Senators fantasized, Winkler's jury deliberated her fate. Eventually it acquitted her from first degree murder but found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter. She's likely to do very little prison time, if any, given the fact that she never had even a shadow on her record before she, not God, destined hubby to die. In the Kingdom Of Law, Winkler is victorious. She will soon return home to explain how dad deserved it to three fatherless daughters.

On the other side of the same coin, Criminal District Attorney Galen Ray Sumrow is the top criminal prosecutor in Rockwall County. Now he is also suspected of being the top criminal. He is charged with three counts of abuse of official capacity. What's not to understand about this is not your money?

Allegedly in 2003 and 2004, Sumrow instructed the Texas Comptroller to direct deposit about seventy thousand dollars of public funds into his personal account. His child support and mortgage payments were due.

In response to a Texas Ranger inquiry, Sumrow verified his signature on the Comptroller's direct deposit authorization but quickly dismissed the matter as a simple mix up and reimbursed the State. Twenty plus years of slamming felons and this is the best story he could come up with?

Unless a jury finds fairy tale doubt about his guilt, Mr. Sumrow will be dining in with some guys he knew from his former life. Maybe he could auction his 1982 Southern Methodist University Doctor of Jurisprudence degree on Ebay before he takes his trip. It won't come with a license to practice law, though.

Cat has plenty of company on the roof. Maybe Dr. Baugh had a good idea after all, "Sometimes I wish I had a pill to make people disappear."

© Coninc., TheDownsideUp.Com 2007