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Our corporate media has been trotting these Bushies back out for years on end now, so it's no surprise that we'd eventually see Alberto Gonzales take his turn. I guess the producers of Morning Joe thought there was no one better for their audience to hear from when it comes to Department of Justice scandals than Gonzo.

It does seem his memory has improved slightly since 2007, when he couldn't recall much of anything when testifying before Congress.

Steve Benen summed up his appearance this Wednesday quite nicely. After first explaining why it's likely Gonzales has kept such a low profile since leaving office and the fact that he went through quite a bit of trouble finding a job, he reminded us why he has absolutely no credibility to be commenting on the DOJ and journalists: Alberto Gonzales returns from obscurity:

The former A.G. nevertheless appeared on MSNBC this morning, apparently ready to address some of ongoing controversies. He seemed inclined to give the Obama administration the benefit of the doubt when it came to subpoenaing Associated Press phone logs, but this nevertheless stood out for me.

Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales recalled on Wednesday a time when he was confronted with a "very serious leak investigation" similar to the one that has embroiled the Obama administration this week. But, he said, he went a very different route and decided against subpoenaing a reporter's notes.

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Things got heated and a bit insane, as they usually do, when Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) got miffed when Attorney General Eric Holder rather politely told Gohmert he didn't know what he was talking about, and that he should refrain some stating as fact what were only Gohmert's conjectures on what may or may not have occurred. The confontation happened during a House Judiciary hearing into the Boston Bombing. Gohmert was disparaging the FBI's handling of the case.

ERIC HOLDER: “You don’t know what the FBI did. You don’t know what the FBI’s interaction was with the Russians. You don’t know what questions were put to the Russians, whether those questions were responded to. You simply do not know that. And you have characterized the FBI as being not thorough, or taken exception to my characterization of them as being thorough. I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know. That is all.”

Gohmert took exception to the fact that his wild allegations would not be taken seriously as facts, and called for a point of personal privilege to defend his honor. Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) noted Gohmert's time had expired but had Holder state again why he considered what Gohmert had said was untrue, which he did, much to the consternation of Gohmert.

A visibly flustered Gohmert then tried for another point of personal privilege, but was rebuked as his time had expired. Gohmert then shouted over the Chairman one of the best lines of the year:

LOUIE GOHMERT: "I cannot have a witness challenge my character! The attorney general will not cast aspersions on my asparagus!"

The British use this as a joking expression ("cast asparagus" on something) but somehow I don't think Gohmert was joking at all. He really is this dumb.

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From this Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Darrell Issa wasn't the only one who had a contentious back and forth with Attorney General Eric Holder: Holder smacks down Gohmert over Boston bombings–’You cannot know what I know’:

An already-ugly House Judiciary Committee hearing on Wednesday turned even nastier when Texas Republican Louie Gohmert took the wheel on questions related to last month’s Boston Marathon bombing–specifically, about what the FBI did and did not do after receiving information from Russian intelligence that suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been radicalized.

Attorney General Eric Holder had already faced a heavy grilling on both the AP and IRS scandals plaguing the Obama administration this week when Gohmert began pelting him with accusations that the FBI shirked a thorough examination of Tsarnaev because of “political correctness.”

“On the one hand, we go after Christian groups like Billy Graham’s group, we go after Franklin Graham’s group, but then we’re hands off when it comes to possibly offending someone who has been radicalized as a terrorist,” said Gohmert.

The Texas lawmaker added that though he “appreciated” the concern of racial profiling, he believes “there were a lot more people in America concerned about being blown up by terrorists.”

Holder fired back that Gohmert was speaking “as a matter of fact” about information not fully available to him.

“Unless somebody’s done something inappropriate, you don’t have access to the FBI files,” said Holder. “You don’t know what the FBI did. You don’t know what the FBI’s interaction was with the Russians. You don’t know what questions were put to the Russians, whether those questions were responded to. You simply do not know that…I know what the FBI did. You cannot know what I know.”

Yeah, old "terror babies" Gohmert is back at it again, fearmongering as usual.

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The Young Turks Cenk Uygur did one of the better summations of just what went wrong with this Fast and Furious operation and on Fortune Magazine's investigative report: ‘The Fast and Furious program as you know it is a myth’ :

Cenk digs into Fortune Magazine’s report following a six-month investigation into claims that agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sold guns to straw purchasers for Mexican cartels during Operation Fast and Furious. Attorney General Eric Holder may be held in contempt, but Fortune concludes that ATF agents never purposely sold to cartels. Instead, their efforts to track purchasers were often blocked by weak gun control laws. “You want to know the irony of this? The NRA had those weak laws passed in the first place,” Cenk says. “Do you know that, in Arizona, all you need to do to buy a gun is to be 18 and pass a background check? In fact … you can buy 10 guns — 100 guns, if you want.”

Here's more from Dave Dayden over at FDL's News Desk: On Eve of Contempt Vote, Revelation that Fast and Furious Is a Convenient Fiction:

White House officials have been in consultation with the GOP House leadership in advance of tomorrow’s contempt of Congress vote for Attorney General Eric Holder over the Fast and Furious scandal and the Justice Department’s response to an Oversight Committee investigation and document request. However, the two sides have not reached an agreement, and as of now, the contempt vote will be held as scheduled. Even though the White House provided access to 30 new documents, that was not enough to delay the contempt vote, suggesting that the vote itself and not the investigation is the end goal here.

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From this Friday's PBS Newshour, in case anyone thought Fox was the only place where no matter what, IOKIYAR and if you engage in a political witch hunt, you will be given cover for your actions, look no further than The New York Times overpaid Villager and turd polisher of all things Republican, David Brooks and his regular weekly appearances on The Newshour on PBS.

Brooks excuses Issa as "doing what they're supposed to be doing" with his committee's attack on Attorney General Eric Holder, and justifies the committee having political gain as a motivation with this Fast and Furious investigation, while ignoring the fact that that Issa has used his chairmanship for issues other than going after actual corruption, which he's ignored time and time again, if he doesn't think his party can benefit from their actions politically and that anything he's actually bothered to have hearings on has been purely political.

Sorry Mr. Brooks, but you can make all the excuses you want, but that's not how these committees are supposed to work. And as a member of the media, opinion based or not, your job should be holding these people accountable for their actions, not making excuses for them and calling it playing politics as usual when they don't do their jobs, and treating the public as though they should just be accepting of how broken and corrupt our political system is right now.

David Brooks... proof that if you're willing to carry enough water for Republicans and make their horrible ideas palatable to the American public, you'll be allowed to continually fail upwards with ever larger pay checks as a reward.

Transcript below the fold.

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Former Florida Rep. Alan Grayson and Blue America candidate Alan Grayson joined Current TV's John Fugelsang in the War Room to discuss the Fast and Furious and what the Republicans are really after with their witch hunt of Attorney General Eric Holder.

Grayson: Fast and Furious ‘circus’ will backfire on Republicans:

Former Florida Rep. Alan Grayson (D) on Wednesday blasted Republicans in Congress for continuing to grill U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder over the “fast and furious” gun-running scandal.

“Why won’t they launch an investigation of why 50 million Americans don’t have health care?” he asked on Current TV. “When are we going to see those investigations?” [...]

Grayson said the documents requested by Republicans could put law enforcement official at risk if released publicly. He described their investigation as a “circus” that was solely intent on harming the Obama administration.

“I think it is already back firing on them,” he said. “People are fed up with the Republicans. They understand the only thing they care about are tax cuts and giving the President a hard time — and I’m talking about tax cuts for the one percent.”

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Stephen Colbert weighed in on what he called "the biggest scandal that he had ever forgotten about" which "luckily Fox News had not," the "fast and furious" gun running scandal which led to the House Judiciary Committee voting to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress this Wednesday.

Colbert took the opportunity to have some fun with Fox and the Republicans for their recent conspiracy theory:

COLBERT: Yes, very clearly, Obama started this gun tracking program in 2006, when he hypnotized George Bush. Then he secretly ordered Attorney General Holder to order the Justice Department, to order the ATF to order gun shops to sell guns to Mexican drug cartels, and then lose track of them, thereby panicking Americans to gin up support for the draconian gun control measures that Obama has never introduced.

Colbert also took the opportunity to mock "Joe the Plumber's" new ridiculous political ad he has out: 'Joe the Plumber' Shoots Fruits, Claims Gun Control Caused the Holocaust.

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As Think Progress reported today: Executive Privilege Does Not Apply Exclusively To Presidential Communications. Apparently it was asking too much for CNN's John King to have pointed that out to Sen. Chuck Grassley today. The Hill didn't inform their readers of that fact either in this report: White House move sets off lawmaker questions over 'Fast and Furious':

Republican leaders in both chambers are raising sharper questions about the White House's involvement in the controversial "Fast and Furious" program after President Obama invoked executive privilege to withhold documents from Republican investigators.

Both the White House and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder have claimed repeatedly that high-level officials – both in the Department of Justice and in the White House – were unaware of the nature of the botched program, which put firearms into the hands of known gun-runners in an effort to trace them to drug-smugglers along the Mexican border.

But with the White House moving unilaterally Wednesday to assert executive privilege over documents sought by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Republicans have grown more suspicious that those officials knew more than they've claimed.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the administration's maneuver "raises monumental questions" about who knew what – and when.

"How can the president assert executive privilege if there was no White House involvement? How can the president exert executive privilege over documents he's supposedly never seen?" Grassley, who met with Holder Tuesday night, said Wednesday in a statement. "Is something very big being hidden to go to this extreme? ... The questions from Congress go to determining what happened in a disastrous government program for accountability and so that it's never repeated again.”

The office of House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) was quick to raise similar concerns. Read on...

Here's more from Think Progress from earlier this week on Darrell Issa's witchhunt: Five Things To Know About The Republican Witchhunt Against Attorney General Holder.

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Nothing like seeing a Republican vow to do their best to make sure all of the voters of her state still have to worry about being thrown off of the voting rolls even if they don't belong there, as GOP AG Pam Bondi promised to do on Megyn Kelly's show on Fox this Tuesday:

AG Pam Bondi Promises Florida Will ‘Keep Fighting’ For Voter Purge:

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News’ Megyn Kelly on Tuesday that the state would “keep fighting” for its right to purge noncitizens from the state’s voter rolls, even though the efforts have removed legitimate voters from the rolls.

“I think every American should find it very frustrating and troubling that [the feds] don’t want to work with our state to insure that the proper people vote,” Bondi said.

The Justice Department told Florida last week that their voter list purge is illegal. Florida is supposed to respond by Wednesday.

Bondi went on to blame their latest tactics on asking the federal government for a list from Homeland Security and it not being made available to them, instead of the list they used to purge the voters off of the rolls. I'll be curious to find out if that statement is true, just what information they were asking for and why it was denied and why the state thought that justified their actions in response. It doesn't change the fact that they instead decided to start purging voters from their rolls that they knew full well were probably legal voters and why the Republicans would have an interest in doing so.

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I'm not sure what impact this had on the recall election this Tuesday night in Wisconsin, but I agree with state Sen. Lena Taylor that those responsible ought to be held to account for this voter suppression tactic. Maybe if we had a few more people going to jail for pulling these type of stunts, they'd be less likely to do it in the first place. It's shameful that Republicans have proven themselves once again willing to do whatever is necessary to suppress voter turnout in order to make sure they win elections.

Wisconsin State Senator: investigations and prosecutions needed for voter suppression:

Investigations and criminal prosecutions are needed for election fraud in Tuesday night's gubernatorial election, Wisconsin State Senator Lena Taylor said. Taylor wrote to the state's Government Accountability Board, arguing that "It is imperative that your agency uphold the law and criminally prosecute any person that is engaged in voter suppression and disenfranchisement tactics." Robocalls have been made to citizens in Wisconsin misleadingly telling them that they needn't vote if they already signed the petition to recall Governor Scott Walker. "It is my understanding that a reporter did call and find out that that call did come from the Republican Party,"

Taylor said, speaking on The Ed Show. "I'm looking forward to the GAB doing an investigation, and I think the Attorney General also should have done and should be doing an investigation of anyone who is attempting to intimidate or to give misinformation to voters in order to suppress votes."Taylor said that the robocalls were an obvious attempt to reverse the momentum that the pro-recall side has made. "They know that the momentum is with [Milwaukee Democratic Mayor]Tom Barrett and they’re determined to cheat and do whatever they can,” she said. “I will characterize this robo-call, frankly, as a disgusting tactic. A fear tactic."

IMHO anyone engaging in this sort of activity ought to be facing some severe criminal penalties and looking at some real jail time for doing it. I'm no expert on Wisconsin law and do not know what the punishment is if they can prove who was making these calls. I was glad to see the state Senator call for the matter to be looked into. I'm sick to death of this type of tactic being allowed to go on and I hope sincerely that Ed Schultz follows up on it so what happened receives some further scrutiny than just the coverage on his show this Tuesday evening.