Ruben Navarratte, Jr. writes the following about Abu Gonzales and the overthrow of the rule of law at DOJ:
The nation's first Hispanic attorney general is being pressured to resign by -- pick 'em -- Democrats trying to make hay, an elite media that long opposed him, civil libertarians who condemn administration policy on detainees and wiretaps, conservatives who think Gonzales is too liberal, and liberals who think he's too conservative.
The list even includes a pair of immigrant-baiting members of Congress -- Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-California and Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado -- who fell out with Gonzales over the prosecution of two ex-border patrol agents.
Leading this lynch mob are white liberals who resent Gonzales because they can't claim the credit for his life's accomplishments and because they can't get him to curtsy. Why should he? Gonzales doesn't owe them a damn thing.
Democratic politicians love posing with mariachis as they nibble chips and salsa on Cinco De Mayo. But it was a Republican -- George W. Bush -- who made history by nominating a Hispanic to serve as attorney general.
Ruben, Gonzales owes us all quite a lot, for example, the truth and fidelity to the U. S. Constitition. Didn't they teach you about that at Harvard?
From that little snippet, you now know Ruben's whole routine: bash both sides, but end up with a Republican attack and talking point, all while snottily sucking up for tenure in the establishment civility elitist police force.
In English, we often call someone like this a "concern troll." In Spanish, I like the word mocoso, which translates roughly as "snot nosed brat." Here's what the most popular review of his book about his experiences at Harvard has to say about the book:
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Watch him grow in arrogance, November 23, 2002
This book is worth reading since it is provocative and has interesting observations about being Latino in the Ivy League. Particularly interesting is his encounter with Richard Rodriguez, who starts out as an enemy and becomes a friend and intellectual mentor of sorts. However, as the book progresses, it feels more like a revisionist explaining away of his shortcomings--why he couldn't commit to his girlfriend and how his confrontations earn him enemies, who of course are mean, petty people in his version of events. Navarette makes everything seems so extreme--it's either Fresno State or Harvard, with nothing in between [emphasis added - Pach]. He seems shocked that almost every institution in his life from UFW to Harvard's RAZA group turns out to be imperfect so ends up basically condemning them as evil. It seems as if he is very good at pointing out the imperfections in everything around him and is obsessed with making people agree with him. The book ends abruptly and on a note of frustration as he gets fed up with the shortcomings of the educational system and leaves graduate school. You really have to start over to the introduction to get any sense of resolution that he has learned something from his experience and not just grown in cynicism and ego.
I must say, his subsequent writing has born this character assessment out spectacularly. He has this really sweet gig going as an establishment annointed opinion writer who poses as an anti-establishmentarian. He does this under the cover provided by his latino heritage, but his ultimate argument always props up The Man. Funny, that. He's a more sophisticated version of Box Turtle Ben, a Mexican American rentboy happy to defend immigration while fluffing the authoritarian cultists of the GOP.
Check this out from last summer:
(07-19) 04:00 PDT San Diego -- LOOKING AT next month's Democratic primary in Connecticut, much more is at stake than whether U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman can survive the toughest fight of his political career.
The bigger issue is the future of an American political system that is as broken as broken gets. In both parties, politics have become all or nothing. The extremists are running things, and they're out to punish anyone in the middle of the road or less than 100 percent committed to the cause -- whatever it is.
Ah, the intolerable cruelty of people who actually believe in things, who argue their beliefs and then organize politically to propel those beliefs. Smell the High Broderism. Is it just me, or does he seem to be trying really hard to overcome that accusation in the Amazon review that he's an extremist himself? Projection, much, Ruben? Eres un narciso extremo, Rubenito.
I get that many latinos in the U. S. wanted to feel and remain proud of Gonzales, but look, we latinos can still know a liar when we see one, and watching him testify before Congress about NSA wiretapping, it was painfully obvious Abu was lying his ass off. I don't know about you, Ruben, but my mama nailed me to the wall with a swift, sharp look when I tried to lie like that as a boy.
The truth is Gonzales was always a mediocre talent who hitched his wagon to the scion of a powerful American family whose moral and intellectual endowment gives new meaning to the phrase "defining deviancy down." Gonzales was his fixer in Austin, burying Bush's drunk driving arrest, and has been a corrupt hack ever since. We all know corrupt hacks from whatever Latin American country our families once called home, and Gonzales is an eminently recognizable specimen.
You see, Ruben, many of us latinos in America have role models much closer to home than the failed corrupt shell of a man that is Abu Gonzales. We don't spend our lives trying to curry the favor and approval of the Yale crowd (in Gonzales' case) or the Harvard crowd (in your case), because we have far better role models in our own families.
Pachacutec blogs at Firedoglake.