Attorney General Alberto Gonzales To Resign

Posted August 27, 2007 - 8:05am by Will Hinton

I have just received breaking news that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has resigned. Of all of the missteps and disasters of the Bush Administration, allowing Gonzales to remain this long has got to be one of the most egregious.

At what point does loyalty become stubborn pride? Bush's loyalty is the stuff of legends. But blind loyalty, especially to incompetence should not be celebrated.

I believe that Gonzales has gotten off too easy. At minimum he should have been fired from his position rather than being allowed to voluntarily resign.

Update: Here is the response from Bush:

President Bush on Monday said he reluctantly accepted the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose "good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."

After months of standing by his top prosecutor and "close friend," Bush spoke briefly in Texas to praise Gonzales, saying the attorney general endured "unfair treatment that has created harmful distraction at the Justice Department."

Bush said it's "sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person" is impeded "from doing important work."

That is pathetic! "Good name dragged through the mud"? An "honorable person"? There are only two ways to view Alberto Gonzales in regards to the US Attorney scandal. Either he deliberately lied about his involvement or he was remiss in his job and didn't know what the hell was going on. Take your pick but I can't see that there are any other options.

Trackback URL for this post:

http://www.goodwillhinton.com/trackback/570

Comments

Not Just Gonzales

by r.johnson - 08/27/2007 - 10:55am

Will,

You beat me to the punch. That three hour time difference helps! ;)

Overall, I agree with your sentiment about Gonzales' incompetence. However, one could read your post and think that it was Gonzales' incompetence that was dragging Bush down, and but for Gonzales' incompetence, misleading testimony, etc., Bush would not be in the position he is in today. Bush is loyal to a fault, and it is Bush's loyalty that has made him suffer. I am not sure whether that is what you believe or not, but I don't exactly see it that way. Loyalty is a two way street. Gonzales was not the one who came up with the notion of spying on US citizens, but he was the one who tried to justify the practice and kept it going. (The most laughable part of Gonzales' resignation was his line that he has worked to ensure that our rights and civil liberties are protected!) How much of the 'heat' is attributable to Gonzales, and how much of a lightening rod was he for policies advocated and implemented by others (Bush, Cheney, Rove)? I am not suggesting that Gonzales is blameless, but I cannot ascribe to a view that presumes Gonzales alone is incompetent and the root cause of George Bush's unpopularity.

r.johnson

rjohnson: I don't disagree

by Will Hinton - 08/27/2007 - 11:01am

rjohnson: I don't disagree at all. Gonzales is just one example of the failures of this administration. I can understand how some Republicans/conservatives may view other episodes of this administration differently than those on the left. However, I can't see how any principled person can defend either Gonzales or the Bush administration for his/their conduct.

another way to look at AGonzalez

by Jim Keffer - 08/27/2007 - 3:33pm

Perhaps, he did things that protected civil rights by blocking programs that would have underminded things more than what is currently occuring. I don't think Bush would say that AG is the sole reason everyone doesn't love him.

Not in this case.

by r.johnson - 08/27/2007 - 6:30pm

Jim,

I understand your point but do not see it as applying here.

First of all, the statement was that he protected civil liberties, and faced with what we have heard and seen from James Comey and others regarding Gonzales' hospital room visit to John Ashcroft, it is difficult to see Gonzales as a protector of civil liberties. Gonzales was expanding the powers of the government at the expense of civil liberties. Second, if the net result of Gonzales' actions is a loss of civil liberties, just not as much of a loss as it could have been if another view had prevailed, it is still a loss. Gonzales does not say 'it could have been worse, so lets count that as a positive.' Gonzales was unapologetic in his views of expanding the powers of the executive branch while he was white house counsel, and he did nothing to change that as AG. He never was a champion of individuals, and if he had championed individual civil liberties in the face of this administration's efforts to curtail them, I would gladly see Gonzales in the more positive light of 'it could have been worse.' Gonzales, however, cannot make that claim since he was working to expand the government powers at the expense of civil liberties.

r.johnson

limited view of things based upon what we actually know about AG

by Jim Keffer - 08/28/2007 - 6:32am

r.j

All I'm saying is that we're not happy with how civil liberties have faired under AG's leadership.

It would be interesting to find, after seeing how things play out 10-20 yrs from now, that AG didn't say no to certain efforts to further curtail liberties that the president or other administration officials wanted to pursue.

Repercussions

by r.johnson - 08/27/2007 - 7:16pm

I have never been a fan of Alberto Gonzales, and am not the least bit sad to see him go. However, the repercussions from Gonzales' ineptitude and resignation hit me today in a way that leave me saddened. I am thinking of my cousin. For a time, she served as one of Gonzales' top assistants in the Bush White House. She was a rising star, not because she is an ideologue, but because she is very bright, generally conservative, and driven. She had aspirations of being named as a federal judge. From what I understand, she would have easily been easily confirmed since she was not an ideologue and had broad mainstream backing. (She did in fact receive Senate confirmation for another position.) All she needed was a little 'icing' on the resume.

The problem for her was that some idiot decided they would fire a number of US attorneys and place key aides in the fired attorney positions. She assumed the role of one fired US attorney, long before the lid was ever blown on this scandal, and received Senate confirmation.

I would have supported a decision to nominate my cousin to the federal bench, not because of nepotism or because we share the same political ideology, but because she is a damn good lawyer, and an honest arbiter of disputes. She once told me that she received the highest compliment that she had ever received from Judge Jack Coughenour, a Reagan appointee, but one few would consider a stalwart conservative. I bet her chance of being nominated to the federal bench has taken a severe blow- worthy or not, nominating her to the federal bench would give the Senate an opportunity to explore the US attorney firings, and this administration is in no position to let that happen. The chance of her surviving a confirmation hearing, the embodiment of this idiotic policy of firing a qualified person so that some other political agenda could be achieved, would be limited.

Her chance of becoming a federal judge probably slipped away when this scandal first was exposed, but it is only today that I had a sense of loss for her in not being able to achieve a reachable and worthy goal. Congress is not to blame for that, but the idiots who thought this was a good idea (Oh Harriet? Karl?) are. I am sure there are others out there like my cousin, John McKay, David Iglesias, and others, and it is unfortunate that their futures were also impacted negatively by the ineptitude of this administration.

r.johnson

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Images can be added to this post.

More information about formatting options

CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.