The Very Definition of "Grasping at Straws"

Oh, for the luvva crumb cake.

I think we can now officially state that Gonzo has jumped the shark. He's circling the drain. He has expired, and gone to meet his maker. He's a stiff. This is an Ex-Attorney General.

How do I know this? Because he's shown his final card, and it ain't the ace of spades. Yes, Gonzo refuses to resign, because he's protecting the children.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced this morning: “I’m not going to resign. I’m going to stay focused on protecting our kids.” Speaking before a Project Safe Childhood event, Gonzales told reporters he plans “to go up to the Congress and provide further clarification” about the U.S. Attorney purge, and claimed that his department has been “tremendous in the area of public corruption.”

Please. "Won't someone please think of the children?" has got to be one of the most overused, hackneyed, trite statements anyone can make. This is a blatantly obvious attempt to paint himself as a "good guy," and every American should be insulted that he believes them to be this stupid. The job of the Attorney General is hardly focused on children alone. As stated at the Carpetbagger Report:

I strolled over to Wikipedia and found exactly what I was looking for: “The phrase ‘for the children,’ or similar phrases such as ‘think of the children,’ is an appeal to emotion and can be used to support an irrelevant conclusion (both logical fallacies) when used in an argument.”

There’s a reason this is such a cliche: it’s vapid and meaningless. Gonzales is going to stay on the job because he’s “focused on protecting our kids”? This may come as a surprise, but I’d hazard a guess that his replacement can focus on protecting our kids, too.

Honestly, could there be a weaker defense? Gonzales is at the center of a major scandal, he has few real allies, the public doesn’t trust him, and lawmakers from both parties want him to resign. According to some reports, the White House is already mulling over possible successors. But never mind all of that, Gonzales says, he’s “protecting our kids.” Please.

I suppose if Gonzales weren't on the job, every single kid in this country would be dead right now. It's the last gasp, folks. The next thing you'll hear will be "I'm leaving to spend more time with my family."

Then he'll explode in a huge mushroom cloud of cliches.