April 19, 2007
Are those walls closing in?
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales faced the unhappy representatives of an unhappy public today as they took him to task for his inconsistent story and poor memory about the firing of eight federal prosecutors last year. Congress might not be able to force him to step down, but they sure put him in a corner over the way he handled both the firings and the cover up about the true motivations and motivators behind the firings.
While Utah Republican Orrin Hatch did his best to bolster Gonzalez’s confidence a bit, he was on the minority side of the discussion as Senators from both parties lambasted the AG for his ever-changing story about what he knew and who he talked with and how involved he was in the firings. Members of both parties also called for him to resign.
Gonzales showed little ability to effectively defend his actions, as he ran from the notion that purely political motivations inspired the unprecedented firings and hid behind an incredibly faulty memory, poor managerial skills and possibly an incomplete paper trail from the executive branch. It’s certainly not a good day when your best strategy is to claim you were a department head who did not make the biggest decisions in the department.
It doesn’t seem proper for the top law enforcement official in the country to stay out of the way while a subordinate makes all the decisions as to who would be fired in the first mass layoff of federal prosecutors not involving a change in presidential administrations. There was nothing illegal about these firings, but they sure show the current administration’s first loyalty is to power and not to the law of the land.
Today Gonzales lost whatever last few shreds of credibility he’d maintained through his years of service to this administration. He’s the man who called the Geneva Conventions “quaint” argued for torturing terror suspects and has repeatedly exploited the margins of legality to pursue this administration’s aim, which all seem to center around the accumulation and protection of wealth and power, so he didn’t enter this whole mess with much credibility as someone who works tirelessly to uphold the laws as they’re written. Instead he came in as someone known for showing contempt for the letter and spirit of the law in pursuit of his goals ahead of society’s.
Now people really only have two ways to view the man. He’s either an underhanded liar, willing to deceive Congress and the public to hide his baldly political maneuverings, or he’s an incompetent administrator who has repeatedly proven his shortcomings in managing a major government department. Either way you look at it he showed how unfit he is to be the Attorney General of the United States.