see also: brain-dead AGs, brain-dead Bush cabinet members, man with almost no brain lives normal life, how to avoid prosecution by being brain-dead...

From today's Justice Dept. report:

[Gonzales] claimed to us and to Congress an extraordinary lack of recollection about the entire removal process. In his most remarkable claim, he testified that he did not remember the meeting in his conference room on November 27, 2006, when the plan was finalized and he approved the removals of the U.S. Attorneys, even though this important meeting occurred only a few months prior to his testimony.

This was not a minor personnel matter that should have been hard to remember. Rather, it related to an unprecedented removal of a group of high-level Presidential appointees, which Sampson and others recognized would result in significant controversy. Nonetheless, Gonzales conceded that he exercised virtually no oversight of the project, and his claim to have very little recollection of his role in the process is extraordinary and difficult to accept.

"You're doin' a heckuva job Speedy..."

News item: Former attorney general Alberto R. Gonzales told investigators that he could not recall whether he took home notes regarding the government's most sensitive national security program and that he did not know they contained classified information, despite his own markings that they were "top secret -- eyes only," according to a Justice Department report released yesterday.

Gonzales improperly carried notes about the warrantless wiretapping program in an unlocked briefcase and failed to keep them in a safe at his Northern Virginia home three years ago because he "could not remember the combination," the department's inspector general reported.

same old brain-deadness keeps getting in the way

Committee says fuzzy memories hurt Tillman probe

SAN FRANCISCO - A "striking lack of recollection" by White House and military officials prevented congressional investigators from determining who was responsible for misinformation spread after the friendly fire death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, a House committee said Monday.

Although military investigators determined within days that the onetime NFL player was killed by his own troops in Afghanistan following an enemy ambush, five weeks passed before the circumstances of his death were made public. During that time, the Army claimed Tillman was killed by enemy fire.

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said in April 2007 that his goal was to discern the genesis of the misinformation. "Was it the result of incompetence, miscommunication or a deliberate strategy?" he said.

The panel acknowledged Monday it had fallen short of this goal. The committee received a flurry of White House e-mails sent as the Bush administration responded to Tillman's death, but no documents about friendly fire. The committee interviewed several top White House officials about the case, but "not a single one could recall when he learned about the fratricide or what he did in response," it said in its 48-page report.

The committee reported a similar lack of information relating to misinformation surrounding Pvt. Jessica Lynch, who was rescued from an Iraqi hospital after she was badly injured and captured in a 2003 ambush. The committee examined how the story of the ambush of her convoy was changed into a tale of heroism on her part.

"As the committee investigated the Tillman and Lynch cases, it encountered a striking lack of recollection," the report said.

more misremembering

IRAQ -- WAR ARCHITECT FEITH CLAIMS ADMINISTRATION NEVER SAID WAR WOULD BE EASY

LEHRER: The public was never told that the Parade of Horribles were considered possibilities. Instead we were told it would be a cakewalk. Were you–

FEITH: You weren’t told that by the administration. Absolutely not.

Press Secretary Ari Fleisher: “My point is, the likelihood is much more like Afghanistan, where the people who live right now under a brutal dictator will view America as liberators, not conquerors.” [10/11/02]

White House Chief of Staff Andy Card: “I think the Iraqi people would welcome freedom with jubilation.” [1/26/03]

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “The people will be enormously relieved and liberated.” [3/20/03]

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz: “The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator. They know that America will not come as a conqueror.” [3/11/03]

Vice President Dick Cheney: “I’m confident that our troops will be successful, and I think it’ll go relatively quickly…Weeks rather than months.” [3/16/03]

National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice: “I do not mean that we will need to maintain a military presence in Iraq as was the case in Europe.” [8/7/03]

Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle: “And a year from now, I’ll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious regime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they’ve been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation.” [9/22/03]

We should visit that Bush Square in Baghdad some time.

There's that phrase again

Bush 'cannot recall' CIA videos

"I cannot recall" should be punishable by a $1.5 meeeeelion fine AND a couple of years at the death row facility in Terre Haute, IN.