Irony

I noticed this brief newstory yesterday in the H-L entititled DOCUMENTS WITHHELD:

The Justice Department is refusing to release hundreds of pages of additional documents related to the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, setting up a fresh clash with Capitol Hill in a controversy that continues to threaten Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales’ hold on his position. The Senate Judiciary Committee is preparing subpoenas for those papers.

Did anyone else notice the irony in the Department of JUSTICE, the enforcer of laws, feeling the need to keep secrets when the Attorney General has assured us that they did nothing wrong. Today’s stoy reports that one of Gonzales’ aides resigns.

The origin of “irony” seems especially pertinent: “French ironie, from Old French, from Latin īrōnīa, from Greek eirōneia, feigned ignorance, from eirōn, dissembler, probably from eirein, to say.”