Memo from Wild Bill Hickok to the Attorney General

Ti-jean, there is nothing new about corruption or duplicity. Knowing what happened to Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare was smart enough to not sit with his back to the door. Unlike Valerie Plame, he covered his back to the extent that, centuries later, scholars are still trying to figure out who he was. Wild Bill Hickok was equally wily but he was nevertheless caught with aces and eights, the dead man’s hand, and is buried next to Calamity Jane. Bad things can happen if you're not careful.

But it is surprising to find that the Attorney General of the United States has less common sense than Jack McCall and left his fingerprints on the gun used to send one of his aides, Kyle Sampson, to the bottom of the Potomac River.

The irony is thicker than the grass in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Attorney General who argued for warrantless searches of telephone records and E-mails has been ambushed by E-mails between Sampson and former White House Counselor Harriet Miers. Never, ever sit with your back to the door, Ti-jean, and for heaven's sake, don't write your villainous plans in E-mails.

Eight Federal prosecutors were gunned down in the D.C. corral by the Justice Department because they were considered insufficiently loyal to Wild George. It could have been worse. “Calamity” Harriet Miers floated the idea of gunning down all 93 Federal prosecutors in 2004. That idea floated like a dead horse, but the fact that it floated at all, no matter how briefly, is frightening.

Imagine that, Ti-jean—a White House counselor who was nominated for a lifetime gig on the Supreme Court recommended that competent prosecutors with good performance reviews be fired for not being “team players.” Lady Justice removed her blindfold and had her finger on the trigger.

Two victims of the shootout in the corral were U.S. attorneys Carol Lam and David Iglesias. Carol Lam was the prosecutor who sent Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham to purgatory and asked some inconvenient questions in the process, and David Iglesias had the misfortune of having his back to the door when Sen. Pete Domenici entered the saloon and pulled his single-action pistol from its loop holster. Do not ever sit with your back to the door, Ti-jean. I cannot stress that enough.

The Attorney General of the United States has acknowledged that “mistakes have been made.” The captain of the Titanic also acknowledged that “mistakes have been made,” but culpability makes no difference when the ship is sinking.

So, what are the cards in Alberto Gonzales' hand? Aces and eights. That's always bad luck, and he's sitting with his back to the door. Wild Bill Hickok can explain why that’s unwise, as can Calamity Jane. Unfortunate things can happen when you're not careful.

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Postscript: Ti-jean, shortly after I wrote this, Paul Perez, a U.S. Attorney in Florida, announced that he would resign to take a job at Fidelity National Financial Inc. The timing may have been coincidental, but from my window in Grande Bouche, it looks like Paul Perez realized that he too was holding aces and eights and had the good sense to ride out of Deadwood in a hurry.

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