Meth Made Him Do It: Attorney General Gonzales's drug problem
by Judith Lewis
April 19, 2007 2:04 PM
Studies have shown that methamphetamine is hard on the brain. You do it once, twice -- soon, you can't remember where you were when you did it, or who you were with; you can't even remember where you got the stuff. For some people it's even worse -- for some people, even thinking about methamphetamine wipes the memory card clean. For them, just planning a whole day devoted to the awareness of the meth scourge makes it impossible to recall the long stretches of time before and after.
From this morning's interrogation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales by Senator Jeff Sessions (Republican from Alabama, lest you think this is a partisan issue):
Sessions: [Y]ou said I don't recall being involved in deliberations regarding whether a United States Attorney should or should not be asked to resign . . . Mr. Sampson had testified that there was a meeting where this was discussed in some detail and that you were present. Do you recall that meeting and where it took place?Gonzales: Senator, I have searched my memory. I have no recollection of the meeting. My schedule shows that meeting for nine o'clock on November 27, but I have no recollection of that meeting....
Sessions: Well, do you recall who Mr. Sampson said was present along with you?
Gonzales: Senator, I recall looking at the documentation on the calendar who would be there. . . . I have no memory of this, but I think the calendar shows that the invitees were the deputy attorney general, the principal associate attorney general Mr. Will Moschella, Kyle Sampson chief of staff, Mike Battle the executive director of executive office of the attorney general, Monica Goodling and myself.
...Sessions: Mr. Sampson seemed to indicate that he understood it was a momentous decision and there would probably be political backlash. . . . You don't recall any of that?
Gonzales: Believe me, I have searched my mind for what I remember about this meeting... At some point Mr. Sampson presented to me the recommendations. At some point I understood what the implementation plan was. But I don't recall the contents of this meeting, Senator.
Sessions: I'm worried about it. Mr. Battle who was there thought you were there, and he thought you were there most of the time. Do you dispute Mr. Battle?
Gonzales: Sometimes people's recollections are different. I have no reason to doubt Mr. Battle's testimony.
Sessions: I have concerns about your recollection, really. It was not that long ago, it was an important issue, and that's troubling to me, I gotta tell you . . .
Gonzales: I went back and looked at my calendar for that week, I traveled to Mexico for the inauguration of the new president. We had National Meth Awareness Day . . . there were a lot of other weighty issues and matters that we were dealing with that week.
Yeah, that's right. National Meth Awareness Day, November 30 -- three days after the meeting about which Gonzales has searched his memory and come up empty. Firing U.S. Attorneys for not performing the president's frog march, that's all in a forgettable day's work. But National Meth Awareness Day? That's big. Memorable, even.
Did you know that " A fairly common hallucination experienced by meth users is the so-called crank bug"? I didn't. That's what I got from the page Gonzales and crew evidently worked so hard on that he totally forgot he'd participated in a detailed meeting about which U.S. Attorneys would be losing their jobs.
I know, it's Earth Day and all. But I thought that maybe what I heard this morning explains why the attorney general allowed the Justice Department's former top environmental prosecutor to sign soggy Superfund cleanup deals with ConocoPhillips after she's just bought a million-dollar home with the company's top lobbyist; why he targeted plain-old saboteurs as "terrorists" on the grounds that they were acting in the name of the environment; and why federal prosecutions of environmental crimes have fallen to a new all-time low. The AG had meth on the brain.
Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
Trackbacks
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://mt.laweekly.com/mt-tb.cgi/35673
Comments
There are 3 comments posted for this article.
Thank you for shining a light on this sad and little known, yet debilitating disease, SCRS (Suddenly Can't Remember Shit). I have heard that Medical Insurers specifically exlude SCRS coverage for politicians and execs of large public corporations due to the high-risk nature of these jobs. I was not aware of the connection between SCRS and Meth, but it certainly makes sense. I never heard of the "Crank Bug" hallucination, but wasn't there a hallucination going around not long ago called WMD? I can't remember for sure...
Phillip
Posted on April 28, 2007 2:04 PM by phillip rosenberg
Dear Phillip --
You imply that I was perhaps cavalier and discompassionate about SCRS disease, and you're so right! It certainly explains a lot of behavior we've observed in our national leaders, from their difficulty grasping the hurricane damage that leveled New Orleans to their inability to receive evidence of climate change to their forgetting that this Iraqi government they're so disappointed in is in fact the one they put in place. I plan to take this all in the context of SCRS in the future, and work toward a cure.
Impeachment, I've heard, is a powerful remedy.
Thank you for setting me straight.
Judith
Posted on April 28, 2007 4:04 PM by Judith Lewis
NOW THAT WE REALIZE WHERE HIS MEMORY PROBLEMS ARISE, LET'S DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT AND HAVE A MOVEMENT TO SEND HIM A BOTTLE OF GENKO. WHAT IF HE FORGETS HIS NAME? HIS WIFE? HIS PRESIDENT? THE POOR FELLOW HAS TO COME BACK TO TEXAS AND BE A SUPREME COURT JUDGE AND WE CERTAINLY CANNOT HAVE SOMEONE WITH A METH MEMORY ISSUING RULING. SO A BOTTLE OF GENKO A DAY, KEEPS THE CONGRESS AT BAY.
Posted on May 22, 2007 12:05 PM by DIEGO GALLEGOS