Echoing Gonzales, Taylor’s Testimony Rife With ‘I Don’t Know’ And ‘I Don’t Recall’

[babylonsister]

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/07/11/sara-taylor-cant-recall/

Echoing Gonzales, Taylor’s Testimony Rife With ‘I Don’t Know’ And ‘I Don’t Recall’

This morning, former White House political director Sara Taylor appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about her involvement in the firing of nine U.S. attorneys last year. Due to the President’s assertion of executive privilege, Taylor was blocked from speaking about internal White House deliberations over the firing, and could only “respond to other questions from senators that do not breach White House confidentiality.”

Yet even under these restrictions, Taylor repeatedly avoided answering questions by claiming a faulty memory.

When Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) asked Taylor if she and Rove ever had a conversation about whether to remove a Wisconsin U.S. attorney, she answered, “I don’t know.” When Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked what criteria was used to remove U.S. attorneys, she said, “I don’t know the answer to that.” When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) asked her to “describe” a political briefing she “gave at the Environmental Protection Agency”, Taylor responded, “I don’t recall that briefing.”

ThinkProgress created a compilation of Taylor’s many “I don’t recall” moments. Watch it at link~

In her testimony, Taylor is demonstrating a memory worthy of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who “uttered the phrase ‘I don’t recall’ and its variants (’I have no recollection,’ ‘I have no memory’) 64 times” while testifying before Congress about the attorney scandal. She has joined the long list of administration officials with supposedly faulty memories when called to testify about their actions in office.

In March, Gonzales’s former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, said “I don’t remember” 122 times when asked about the scandal. When Government Services Administration chief Lurita Doan testified about possible illegal behavior under her watch, the only thing she could remember about her tenure was that “there were cookies on the table” at one of her meetings. DoJ official Bradley Schlozman nearly broke Gonzales’ “record of saying ‘I don’t recall.’”

Unfortunately, the spate of amnesia that has taken hold over Bush administration appointees has elicited more questions about the U.S. attorney scandal than it has resolved.

[acmavm]

1. Not one person in that administration can remember back to

this morning, or so it seems. They should be put somewhere where having a defective memory won't be such a problem for the poor creatures.

[flakey_foont]

2. maybe this will help her

<<http://www.amazon.com/Memory-Book-Classic-Improving-School/dp/0345410025>>

and pick up some Ginkgo Biloba while your at it

[tech3149]

3. Welcome to the Peter Gabriel administration! n/t