On Sunday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said law enforcement was looking into prosecuting journalists.
This brought a huge sigh of relief from all Americans. Far right reactionaries were exhilarated that Freedom of the Press was finally being attacked. Everyone else was overjoyed by the realization that Gonzales had not been nominated for the Supreme Court.
"There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility," Gonzales said, referring to prosecuting journalists, something previously thought to be unthinkable. And ghastly.
Though many believe the statute Gonzales cited was the obscure 1917 Espionage Act, surprisingly that is not the case. In fact, he was referring to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..."
Legal contortionists believe that by "reading carefully," Freedom of the Press may indeed be abridged, so long as the government does not actually "respect" journalists.
The only true shock at the Attorney General's attack to destroy one of America's core precepts of freedom is that it didn't occurring earlier. After all, this is the same man who made the case that torture was okay, that it was legal to jail suspects without an attorney, fine to tape phone calls of Americans without a warrant, and no problem compiling a list without legal permission of every phone call in the United States.
Gonzales taking a buzzsaw to yet one more American freedom is all in a day's work. To his Justice Department, "Give me your tired, your poor" is not a welcoming salutation, but a demand. You almost except to find that the Statue of Liberty now reads, "...or else."
(No irony has been lost on the Attorney General threatening to prosecute reporters for exposing illegal domestic spying that he himself approved. Apparently he believes you can have your cake and eat it, too.)
Among other little-known positions Alberto Gonzales has taken are:
oIt is legal to arrest suspects without reading them their Miranda Rights and then use what they say against them, as long as the police know those Rights.
oIt is legal for any law officer to break into a person's home and go through their possessions, if there is a national security threat anywhere in the country.
oIt is illegal to translate the words of "My Old Kentucky Home" into any language other than English.
oIt is illegal to translate the words of "The Macarena" into English.
oAnything the President does is legal, because he is the President.
oIt is legal to deport any American citizen whose ancestors entered the United States illegally, unless they are the Attorney General of the United States.
oEthnic cleansing can be legally justified in some cases, if it's done for national security.
oIt is not illegal for the President to swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution and then not do so, if he hasn't read it in full. Or if read, not understood.
oIt is legal to arrest anyone for doing a comedy monologue critical of the President, if it is in the presence of the President and journalists, and a meal has been served.
oIt is illegal for pitcher to throw a curveball with two strikes on a batter.
oIt is legal to count all Black citizens as 3/5th of a vote, per the Constitutional Framers original intent.
oIt is legal for the Pharaoh to kill all first-born.
In the end, it's worth noting that Attorney General Gonzales was unable to find any clear-cut laws that allow prosecuting journalists, but instead has been forced to "read the language carefully" in order to somehow find a way that would "seem to indicate" it's legal to permit arrests. Boy, howdy, talk about pulling hairs from a rock. One would think that so microscopic an effort would be used for pursuing, say, drug lords, Al Qaeda terrorists or Halliburton executives - or at least to fight the NSA refusing clearance to lawyers investigating NSA domestic spying - but that would mean defending the Constitution, rather than trampling on the "goddamned piece of paper," as the President whimsically called it.
The Bush Administration wouldn't allow the press to freely cover the Iraq War without being "embedded." It blames the press for reporting bad news in Iraq. It refuses to let the press cover the honored caskets being returned from the war. And now it is threatening to put the press in jail for reporting news about the Administration's illegal activities. The White House is giving new meaning to the phrase, "Stop the presses."