Rep. Rahm Emanuel, House Democratic Caucus chairman, had written Gonzales two letters suggesting that he name Carol Lam, fired as U.S. attorney in San Diego, as an outside counsel to continue her pursuit of the Duke Cunningham case. Asked by Melissa Charbonneau of the Christian Broadcasting Network about this column’s report that Gonzales did not respond, Gonzales said: “I think that the American people lose if I spend all my time worrying about congressional requests for information, if I spend all my time responding to subpoenas.”

TPMMuckraker on a new Bob Novak column citing the above.

My first reaction to this was in the ‘WTF?!?!?’ category but that just doesn’t do any of this justice (ahem). Here’s the problem that Mr. Gonzales has. He is not above the law and he is certainly not above a subpoena from the United States Congress. Even on this account his boss could not save his ass. My guess is that if Gonzales continues to head in this direction that we are going to see an interesting confrontation (that may or may not take place regardless of this particular snub) and possibly that constitutional crises (that we are already in but people think is still coming) will reach critical mass. The bottom line is that the justice department has some serious problems. We know all too well that given Gonzales’ previous testimony that he is simply…not suited? ill-equipped? No, he’s a smart guy I think but there’s something about the willingness to use his interpretation of things to destroy our freedoms and liberties (and with such ease) that makes me nervous about our ability to right the ship once he’s gone.

I hope after this our congressional leaders will pin his ass to a chair in front of a committee, make him raise his right hand and explain why he thinks he doesn’t need to respond to them…