Oh, for the love of Charlton Heston

In all the coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting, all the people expressing their horror at the tragedy, this quote from Bush spokeswoman Dana Perino jumped out at me:

"The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed," Perino said...

Now, in all fairness, this comment was one line in a statement expressing sympathy on the President's part. Which is kind of my problem. Bush just couldn't help himself but to throw his personal politics into this, to exploit the situation and his public podium as President of the United States to shoot his mouth off.

What is the purpose of Bush issuing a statement like that? To help and comfort people in a time of tragedy, right? Well, just who is that part supposed to help and comfort?

Evil Erin and the Origami Rose

Yesterday, a woman acquaintance of mine said just about the nicest thing to me.

So once upon a time, I was dating a woman whom I now call "Evil Erin," because her name was Erin, and she was eeeeeeeevil.

(Note that she is not to be confused with my friend Good Erin, who I sometimes also speak of on this page.)

Well, so it happened that Evil Erin and I were dating during Valentine's Day, and it happened that she liked roses. So I figured it'd be nice if I made for her an origami rose for Valentine's Day, which I did. I had to go buy the special paper, and then spent most of two days figuring out how to make this thing, and practicing it, and then making the good rose. It wasn't easy, but I thought the result was pretty cool.

Well. Evil Erin did not think it was cool. When I gave her the rose, she got this look on her face, which said very clearly, "What the hell is this? I don't want this! What does he think I'm going to do with it? What a jackass!" And I knew right at that moment that we were later going to have a very heated conversation where she brought this up and used it as a bludgeon with which to beat me. Which is exactly what happened.

Now, the upsetting part of that for me was Evil Erin's total failure to appreciate the fact that, even if the end-product wasn't to her liking, I'd thought about her, and put effort in, and made a gesture which under most circumstances would be considered kinda sweet.

Well. So, I had related this story to my woman acquaintance. This was probably a few months ago.

Yesterday she told me that she'd been thinking about me and my story. Apparently her boyfriend had been out in the yard, and had seen some spring flowers and picked them for her, and brought them to her. At which point, she told me, her immediate internal reaction was, "What, you were too cheap to go to the flower shop?"

But then, she told me, she'd thought of me telling her about my experience with Evil Erin, and had been able to flip her thinking to, my boyfriend just made a sweet gesture, and I'm going to appreciate that.

And then she said just about the nicest thing she could have said to me:

"Your story actually helped me."

Wow.

So, I'm going to take my personal triumphs where I can get them. And if tales of my misfortunes can somehow help others, then you all are welcome to them.

What's legalese for "bite me?"

Warning: politics.

Today we're going to talk about the issue of Monica Goodling, who is/was a senior aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. For those of you not following along, Ms. Goodling has been in the public light recently for having refused to testify before Congress on the matter of the firings of US Attorneys, by invoking her 5th Amendment right to not incriminate herself.

Leaders of Congress understandably raised a stink about this, along the lines of, that is tantamount to an admission of criminal behavior on her part, and how is it that she hasn't been fired?

Well. Apparently Ms. Goodling's attorneys weren't going to stand for that. According to this Washington Post article:

Attorneys John M. Dowd and Jeffrey King wrote that Goodling's assertion of her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination "can in no way be interpreted to suggest that Ms. Goodling herself participated in any criminal activity."

They also accused Congressional leaders of using McCarthyist tactics, which I find a very interesting thing for lawyers to do. It's almost as though they were not trying to communicate their position and intentions to Congress so much as grandstand in front of the court of public opinion. And further, I don't see how poking Congressional leaders in the eye really serves their client's interests.

Anyway.

Pete has some interesting things to say about this whole thing, including the fact that it's not really legitimate to use the 5th Amendment as an excuse to not testify at all, which is how it's being used by Ms. Goodling.

My thing is this. Not being a constitutional lawyer or anything, but...

How does the response of Ms. Goodling's lawyers here make any sense at all?

If the 5th Amendment says I don't have to provide self-inciminating testimony, and I say, "I am invoking this rule," then the only two possibilites seem to be 1) I have done something illegal but am making use of my constitutional right not to be compelled to say so, or 2) I am not legitimately invoking the rule.

Am I missing something here? Perhaps Ms. Goodling's lawyers would prefer that Congress believe the second possibility, rather than the first one?

Or, perhaps they're hoping that Congress and the American people don't realize that simple logic leaves these people no ground on which to stand.