(Hilarious hot sauce photo via Malavagma.)

Sen. Pat Leahy must have been feeling a little hot under the collar, because he sent a letter to AG Alberto Gonzales that was a little…saucy:  (via TPM Muckraker)

…At our last oversight hearing with you on January 18, 2007, you apologized for the tardiness with which you had provided written responses to questions that had been outstanding for six months. Regrettably, the Committee has yet to receive answers from the written questions sent to you in connection with that January 18th hearing. We are approaching three months since the last hearing, yet you and the Department seem to be repeating the practice of not responding in a timely manner. Instead, if you respond at all, you do so only as a hearing appearance approaches. Although the Committee was informed weeks ago to expect your answers on a rolling basis, we have yet to receive a single answer. Please ensure that the Committee receives your answers to the oversight questions from the January 18th hearing without further delay.

As I noted in a letter to you last month, the Committee had also not received answers to the questions we had propounded to the FBI Director following his appearance in December. We proceeded with a hearing on March 27th without the benefit of those answers. I had received a letter from his staff indicating that the Director had provided the Department of Justice with his responses to the questions propounded to him following his December appearance. It is now four months since those questions were propounded and we still do not have answers from the Department of Justice.

You would not tolerate this kind of response time in a Justice Department investigation where months go by without answers and when those answers are finally provided they are outdated or superseded by events. That is not conducive to effective oversight.  (emphasis mine)

Quite the piquant little missive, manages not to tell the AG to go Cheney himself, and yet gets the "get yer lazy behind in gear or else" message across with a little spice.  Can anyone else say disrespect for Congress and a potential attempt to thwart and impede oversight?  How about contempt of Congress?  I thought you could.

This is me, looking forward to the hearings with the AG. And stocking up on popcorn in the meantime. Booyah!