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Gonzales explains “electronic surveillance” remarks

Special to Pajamaline Media

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, widely ridiculed for yesterday’s statement that “President Washington, President Lincoln, President Wilson, President Roosevelt have all authorized electronic surveillance on a far broader scale” than that undertaken by President Bush, explained to the Senate Judiciary Committee today that George Washington’s “time” “machine” allowed him to travel backwards from 1790 to 1777 and reverse the colonists’ almost certain defeat at the hands of the British during the bleakest winter of the Revolutionary War.

Jabbing the air with “quotation” marks each time he uttered the words “time” and “machine,” Gonzales insisted that there was no other explanation for the outcome of the Revolutionary War.

“The Americans were outmanned, underfed, and barely clothed,” Gonzales noted, “and they were fighting one of the most powerful nations in the world.  If not for Washington’s bold decision to bypass FISA and develop his ‘time’ ‘machine,’ we might all be speaking British to this very day.”

Senator Jeff Sessions (R - Alabama) underscored Gonzales’s statement, saying, “I am extremely disturbed by those Democrats and those members of the media who suggest that the father of our country was some kind of criminal, just because he wanted to defeat the enemy.”

Sessions proceeded to ask Gonzales about Abraham Lincoln’s use of electronics, and whether Lincoln might have used illegal methods in the conduct of “the war of Northern aggression.”

Gonzales replied that Lincoln had, indeed, ignored FISA during the Civil War.  “Thanks to the development of his ‘laser’ in late 1863,” Gonzales said, once again making broad, exaggerated “quotation” gestures with his hands, “Lincoln was able to overcome the South’s early military victories and win the war.  You don’t think William T. Sherman caused all that destruction by himself, do you?” Gonzales proceeded to explain that Lincoln’s laser was the result of a special project undertaken by Secretary of War Alan Parsons, and that its secret code name during the war was, accordingly, “the Alan Parsons Project.”

Injecting a moment of drama into the proceedings, Lindsey Graham (R - South Carolina) suddenly ran from the chamber in tears, vowing “revenge” against General Sherman and “laser-toting Yankees everywhere.”

When the committee returned to business, Russ Feingold (D - Wisconsin) interrogated Gonzales repeatedly about Lincoln’s laser, suggesting that “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation” was not invented until 1958, when Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes published the paper “Infrared and Optical Masers” in the journal Physical Review. 

“That much is true,” said Gonzales.  “But thanks to President Eisenhower’s wise decision to use Washington’s ‘time’ ‘machine’ in 1959, he was able to skirt messy, bureaucratic Congressional oversight in order to deliver the ‘laser’ to Abraham Lincoln just in the nick of time.  And that’s the kind of crisp, time-travelling decision-making power the President needs today.”

Pajamaline Media extra: The Editors have the graphics.

Posted by on 02/07 at 01:03 PM

  1. Now that’s dilating.

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  01:52 PM

  2. A little-known element of Sec. Parson’s program was a surveillance satellite (also courtesy of the Eisenhower administration), known as the “Eye in the Sky”.  Some say that it could even read your mind.

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  02:05 PM

  3. My dad says it was Benjamin Franklin who helped Washington with the electronic serveillance.

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  02:08 PM

  4. Nice post. I’ll score it a seven on the Fafscale.  Keep at it man, you’re almost Fafulous.
    -J

    Posted by John I  on  02/07  at  02:22 PM

  5. So that’s what “dilating” means!

    In a separate development, calicajun, Karl Rove said today, “I am the maker of rules dealing with fools.  I can cheat you blind.” You can’t make this stuff up, I tell you.

    And your dad is right, Emily.  Franklin also showed Washington how to torture British agents using a Leyden jar, and the intelligence we got as a result of Franklin’s interrogation techniques has kept America free ever since.

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  02:22 PM

  6. Very amusing.  But in a funny post, it might be best not to directly link to one of the Poor Man’s comics.  Which are complete and utter genius, so that anything compared with them ... well.

    I also liked Atrios’ “when was *President* Washington at war?” question.

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  02:24 PM

  7. Thanks, John I.  I appreciate that.  I know there’s no way to hit the upper ranges of the Fafscale without an army of mighty robots or a Medium Lobster.

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  02:24 PM

  8. And Rich, as I am to the Fafblog, so I am to the Open Source Poor Man.  I think of it this way.  There is complete and utter genius, and then there are the awed bystanders whose job it is to recognize complete and utter genius.  I consider myself a member of Awed Bystander Media.

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  02:27 PM

  9. As impressive as Sherman’s use of “lasers” was, they are not always the way to go.  When Colonel Scott Evil had suggested sending in a battalion of SEALs to get bin Laden at Tora Bora, he was overruled.  If SEALs were good, sharks were better - and sharks with “lasers” on their heads were the frickin’ best!  Attempts to explain “...not that kind of seal...” were met with “zip it!”.  So, the caves were flooded with 63 billion cubic feet of seawater, and the enhanced elasmobranchii released.  The results were not good.

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  02:36 PM

  10. For my part, I told everyone—including Frau Condolissina—that we could apprehend bin Laden only if we brought out the unnecessarily slow dipping device.

    My captcha word below:  “history.”

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  02:56 PM

  11. Funniest thing about the graphics?  John Pertwee

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  05:10 PM

  12. You’re welcome Doc, but as I’m sure you are aware the Fafscale goes to 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.

    Posted by John I  on  02/07  at  06:54 PM

  13. Just one tiny teeny quibble: that must have been the War of 1812 that Washington crossed the river into the uncharted territories of constitutionally suspect behavior, since there wasn’t a Constitution during the Revolutionary one.  Drat, during that one, it was that French prissy Rochambeau, right??

    Posted by  on  02/07  at  07:41 PM

  14. Now we know why Gonzales wouldn’t take the oath to testify truthfully.

    Posted by rootlesscosmo  on  02/07  at  08:24 PM

  15. Yes, John I, but at least it helps that it is a logrhythmic scale…

    Posted by Charlie  on  02/07  at  09:02 PM

  16. Gonzales proceeded to explain that Lincoln’s laser was the result of a special project undertaken by Secretary of War Alan Parsons, and that its secret code name during the war was, accordingly, “the Alan Parsons Project.”

    Wait till Dr. Evil finds out you’ve purloined one of his lines. Hoo, boy.

    Posted by The One True Blogger  on  02/09  at  08:28 AM

  17. Actually, One True, I believe I purloined the whole schtick.  Can someone throw me a bone here?  People?

    Posted by Michael  on  02/09  at  10:18 AM

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