Thanks to Juan: Tovah's case II (the good place for "good americans")

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose Department of Justice purged certain of its most competent career attorneys at the civil rights division so that "good Americans" could replace them [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/20/AR2007062002543_pf.html ], seems to have applied a rather flexible standard of professional conduct (or a somewhat warped sense of patriotism, or both) when the time came for reviewing the administration's violations of – you guessed it – civil rights in applying the infamous PATRIOT Act. Indeed [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/09/AR2007070902065.html?hpid=topnews],


As he sought to renew the USA Patriot Act two years ago, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales assured lawmakers that the FBI had not abused its potent new terrorism-fighting powers. "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse," Gonzales told senators on April 27, 2005 .

Six days earlier, the FBI sent Gonzales a copy of a report that said its agents had obtained personal information that they were not entitled to have. It was one of at least half a dozen reports of legal or procedural violations that Gonzales received in the three months before he made his statement to the Senate intelligence committee, according to internal FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act.

In Spain we have a saying, "dime de lo que presumes y te diré de lo que careces". An exact translation would be "tell me what you boast of and I'll tell you what you're lacking". Although this saying seems fitting enough here, I believe there's an even better way of capturing the spirit of Alberto Gonzales's record as White House Counsel first and, currently, as Attorney General. Remember Watergate? A popular joke from then, adapted to the current circumstances:

How can you tell whether Alberto Gonzales is lying? See if his lips are moving.

(Thanks to Juan for both information and comments: this is all his, although, as always, I agree 100%, 24/7)