All Intensive Purposes

Eve Fairbanks, in The New Republic, on the Attorney General's particular brand of fecklessness:

That Gonzales wants to remain attorney general to heal the department he screwed up so badly--an idea he put forth many times at the hearing--is the apotheosis of the audacity displayed in these smaller episodes. He's already weathered the worst of this scandal, and he knows he probably won't go now. And so Gonzales was neither defensive, as most political types tend to be when under attack, nor contrite. He just appeared to be entirely without shame. Like the broken mole in a Whack-A-Mole console, no matter how many blows he receives, he maintains his infuriatingly rigid smile and won't go down. In this he recalls Bush during Katrina, Rumsfeld during Iraq, Cheney--well, Cheney all the time. In the end, I think this peculiarly uniform immunity to feelings of shame or remorse will stand as this administration's defining trait.

My pal G. points out that this absence of shame has been a boon, a competitive advantage to the Administration that has permitted it to get down to the business of enriching its friends and realizing its ideological goals without hindrance. Does Cheney have any time to feel shame? Hell, no -- he's got more important goals, and less than two years left in which to realize them.