Seeing activists march around the main green or quad or what have you, touting posters and chanting mostly at each other, I used to think, what's the point? There's an informational purpose, to be sure, but, still, it always seemed like a better idea to me to break through the bubble and get off campus. But I was wrong. It seems concerted cross-campus efforts to protest our erstwhile AG may be putting the financial squeeze on Gonzo. The Washington Post reports:

Buried by legal bills and hard up for cash, former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales hit the college speaking circuit last month hoping to rake in big bucks. Instead, he's been raked over the coals, heckled or flat out turned down by students whose institutions he charges exorbitant fees to tap his amnesiac mind. ...

Even before the CIA tapes scandal, Gonzales had become the subject of angry editorials and protests on campuses near and far. At the University of Florida last month, he was viciously heckled to the point that two students wearing black hoods and orange jumpsuits blaring the words "civil liberties"- impersonating prisoners at Abu Ghraib - walked on stage and stood next to the former attorney general as he spoke. (Until they were arrested.)

It was a tough way to make $40,000. And it stands to get tougher. Gonzales is scheduled to speak on Feb. 19 at Washington University in St. Louis, where more demonstrations are expected, according to the student body president.

The talent agency Gonzales signed up with to get him speaking gigs at colleges and universities doesn't seem to be having a ton of luck. The agency, Greater Talent Network, based in New York, sent out a blast email to schools pitching Gonzales as a top-notch get - without mentioning, of course, that he's raising money for his legal defense fund. ...

Pomona College in southern California is one school that has decided Gonzales isn't worth the $35,000 cost or the headache. Politics Professor Heather Williams lit the firestorm with an Op-ed in the school paper titled "Alberto Gonzales Is a Disgrace, Not a Speaker."

"Why invite a man who repeatedly broke the law, shredded the ethical codes of the institutions he served, and then lied about it?" Williams asked. In a telephone chat, the professor told us, "It occurred to me that in 15 years Gonzales might well be up on war crimes charges."

The last time Dick Cheney went on Larry King Live he proclaimed the insurgency in Iraq was in “last throes,” so when I heard the veep would be back for another interview tonight, I got my popcorn out and prepared for some entertaining lies and high-quality misleading of the public.

With the US Attorneys purge coming to a head, I went over to the Washington Post website and read some of the emails between White House counsel Harriet Miers and Gonzales's Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson.  Page 3 stuck out at me.

Page 3 was an email from Sampson to Miers, describing his system for marking which US Attorneys should be kept or pushed out:

----- 

     From: Sampson, Kyle

     Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 5:42 PM

     To: 'Harriet Miers'

     Subject: U.S. Attorneys 

     To be clear, putting aside the question of expiring terms, the analysis on the chart I gave you is as follows:

     bold = Recommend retaining; strong U.S. Attorneys who have produced, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the President and the Attorney General.

     strikethrough = Recommend removing; weak U.S. Attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.

     nothing = No recommendation; have not distinguished themselves either positively or negatively. 

----- 

Take a good look at that first category, the one where Sampson bolded the names ("strong U.S. Attorneys who have produced, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the President and the Attorney General"). 

I just took the LSATs back in February, and I spent a lot of time working with those prep books.  Every LSAT prep book, in highlighting the importance of reading every passage closely, makes sure to mention the key difference between the conjunctions "and" & "or" within a sentence. 

For example, if a law says that a rented property can be occupied by 'the renter OR his family,' then the renter's brother could sublet the place, but if it stipulated 'the renter AND his family,' then the person on the lease would have to be in the house.  The difference between "and" & "or" is massive and critical, and any lawyer in America, especially the Attorney General's Chief of Staff, knows that by rote.