To be this dumb.

Ruth Marcus has at it regarding the on-going saga of our Attorney-General, and if I tell you that she carves out a idiosyncratic place for herself from the rocky heights of beltway profundity, (using a tooth pick because this is the only experience of tool-using folks like Marcus ever get), you could probably come pretty close to sketching out the column without ever reading it.

Here's her opening:

I find myself in an unaccustomed and unexpected position: defending Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Gonzales fans, if there are Gonzales fans left, except for the only fan who counts: Don't take any comfort from my assessment.

Unaccustomed and unexpected only because she doesn't remember any of her previous columns; that's part of the curriculum in that secret class, "How to Become A Consumate Media Asshole," I am now convinced has to exist out there somewhere.

Her caution to Gonzales fans is given because Marcus is willing to concede the undeniable; that Gonzales is a fool and a knave, a deceiver and a dissembler in his sworn testimony before the Senate, and he deserved the brutal treatment he got from both sides of the aisle.

However, ah, yes, the inevitable "however," the inescapable "but,"...you knew it was coming, but can you guess what "the but" is?