Former AG Alberto Gonzales has not been the busiest guy around, except for that really cool gig doing the commencement address at Free Will Baptist High (All six members of the graduating class thought he did a great job, I might add).  While most attorneys general land on their feet, AG landed on his butt.  But not for long.

According to Bloomberg via The Muckraker, AG has started a new career as peacemaker (no prior torture experience required).

Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who was forced from his job amid a controversy over the firings of federal prosecutors, has been hired to provide assistance to a special master on a patent case.

Gonzales will help former U.S. District Judge Layn R. Phillips oversee settlement talks in the case of a Texas company which claims banks such as Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc.’s Citibank and Bank of America Corp. are violating its patents for taking and transmitting digital images of checks.

How weird that two of my favorite things end up together, when there was absolutely no connection between the two previously?

I’ve posted quite a bit about DataTreasury, the Plano, Texas company that owns tha patents that our close friends in the banking industry want desperately to use without paying for.  The banking industry has gone on full scale attack to smear the principals of the company and buy the senate’s love to avoid the price tag.  It seems that it’s worth a few million in political donations and lobbying fees to save $20 billion.  So what if it requires undermining law and democracy in the process.  This could run into real money.

But why Gonzales?  That’s a mystery.

Phillips, in an order signed yesterday, said he needed Gonzales’s help because of the number of parties in the case and the “overall complexity of this litigation.”

That explains why help is needed, but not why Gonzales is the right man for the job.  Is this a set-up?  AG doesn’t come with either a wealth of trust in his dedication to doing the right thing, or any particular experience in dealing with complex banking or patent issues.  True, he was available, and probably wouldn’t quibble with the pay.  But there were probably a number of others with actual qualifications for the job who were equally available.  Special master in a dispute is a job for an honest broker, two words that have never been associated with Al Gonzales.

So why Gonzales?  I can’t explain it.  But I’ll keep an eye on it just to make sure he hasn’t been brought in to be the “banker’s friend” in this deal.  There is one thing that can’t be denied about AG.  He knows how to be loyal and to whom he owes fealty.  After all, there might be a good job as a bank security guard available to him some day, if he plays his cards right.