Once again, sorry about the absence. I’m trying to get more on top of things. But regardless, things are getting pretty bad for our friend Alberto Gonzales. Now if you’ll recall, a while ago I wrote about the Attorney General’s crusade against child pornography. Although I mocked him for grandstanding over such an obvious target, at least it was a good target, as opposed to the peaceful anti-war activists the FBI spied on thanks to the PATRIOT Act.

Here’s where things go terribly awry, though. Apparently while all this was going on, ol’ Berty was actively not pursuing a Texas case involving sexual abuse of young boys. Now I never link to WorldNetDaily, so the fact that I am tells you this is serious.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, both already under siege for other matters, are now being accused of failing to prosecute officers of the Texas Youth Commission after a Texas Ranger investigation documented that guards and administrators were sexually abusing the institution’s teenage boy inmates.

…

Burzynski presented his findings to the attorney general in Texas, to the U.S. Attorney Sutton, and to the Department of Justice civil rights division. From all three, Burzynski received no interest in prosecuting the alleged sexual offenses.

Ouch. So the Attorney General goes on and on about saving the children, but at the same time he’s not investigating a case of clear sexual abuse of children. I don’t think the significance of that can be easily overstated.

And moving along, we find that his top aide is going to use the fifth amendment and refusing to testify over the attorney firing scandal.

Monica Goodling, who serves as the Justice Department’s liaison to the White House and counselor to the attorney general, notified the committee Monday that she will not be testifying about the scandal.

Justice Department documents show that Goodling helped determine which prosecutors should be fired. The documents also showed that she worked closely with White House political operative Karl Rove to remove the United States attorney in Arkansas so that one of Rove’s aides could take the job.

This is absurd. Don’t get me wrong, I support the concept of the 5th amendment, but at the same time it does cast an undeniable shadow depending on when it’s used.

Will Gonzales keep his job? I can only wonder. I would hope he doesn’t, but then I suppose there isn’t much precedent for otherwise except in extreme cases like Heckuvajob Brownie.