Constitutional rights are important, damnit!

Last week I mentioned how White House Counsel Fred Fielding's offer to provide WH staffers for private, off-the-record "interviews" in lieu of public, sworn testimony was the White House version of "lawyering up." Well, today we have an example of actual lawyering up by an administration official.

A senior Justice Department official named Monica Goodling, currently on what is described as a "leave of absence", has informed members of congress that she will not testify before the judiciary committee as scheduled Thursday in the ongoing U.S. Attorney firings probe. She is asserting her 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination.

This is the first real indication that anything illegal may have happened here. Since the Bush administration believes that "laws" generally have no application to themselves or their actions, it would not be surprising to learn that some laws may have been "broken" from time to time by the "loyal Bushies".

But in this particular situation, it is difficult to imagine what possible crime could have occurred. At a guess, it is probably one of those ancillary crimes that politicos often seem to fall victim to, such as obstruction of justice or perjury or somesuch. Document shredding, perhaps?

Anyhow. The point of this post is not to further rail on the WH, or even on its evil minion Alberto R. "Judge" Gonzales, but to celebrate the news that our government, and the executive branch in particular, is in fact aware of the existence of a centuries-old document known as "the Constitution", and do indeed recognize and value the rights granted to citizens thereunder.

Unbelievable, but true. When asked about Justice Department official Monica Goodling's decision to assert her Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination, White House spokesperson Dana Perino acknowledged the existence of the Constitution and stated unequivocally: "We must respect the constitutional rights of the people involved and the decision of those individuals and their counsel to protect those rights."