Going, Going, Gonzalez...

Nick Gillespie | March 28, 2007

You know it's time to say adios when you're the attorney general in a Republican administration and National Review is telling you to take a hike:

What little credibility Gonzales had is gone. All that now keeps him in office, save the friendship of the president, is the conviction of many Republicans that removing him would embolden the Democrats. It is an overblown fear. The Democrats will pursue scandals, real or invented, whether or not Gonzales stays. But they have an especially inviting target in Gonzales. He cannot defend the administration and its policies even when they deserve defense. Alberto Gonzales should resign. The Justice Department needs a fresh start.

Whole thing here.

Comments

|3.28.07 @ 10:39AM|#

Another one bites the dust
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, Im gonna get you too
Another one bites the dust...

here's to AG # 3

VM|3.28.07 @ 10:54AM|#

This moose isn't a fan of either AG under bushie. (I think Asscroft was the most evil in the admin at first)... But why didn't Reno resign? She shoulda. grrr. She was a fairly disgusting AG, to put it mildly...

And was Dicky Thornburgh ousted cuz of Ruby Ridge? Or did he go naturally?

grumble.

Seitz|3.28.07 @ 11:04AM|#

All that now keeps him in office, save the friendship of the president, is the conviction of many Republicans that removing him would embolden the Democrats.

This must have been a mistake in the editing process. I think what they meant to write was:

All that now keeps him in office, save the friendship of the President, are the potential convictions of many Republicans which would follow under a competent attorney general whose appointment would be approved by emboldened Democrats in the Senate.

|3.28.07 @ 11:08AM|#

Just wait; I predict President Giuliani's Attorney General, one B Kerik, will make Gonzales look positively Solomonic.

GILMORE|3.28.07 @ 11:19AM|#

I recommended firing Gonzales for his smirk alone.

Andy|3.28.07 @ 11:29AM|#

Maybe I'm too cynical, but it seems highly unlikely to me there would BE a new Attorney General. There's only a year and a half left, why would Bush bother to find someone the (emboldened and sassy) Dems would approve? Why not just ride out the string with the Deputy AG taking over the reigns?

Is there something requiring Bush to put himself out there on this one?

the DAG bio, FYI:
http://www.usdoj.gov/dag/dagmcnultybio.htm

|3.28.07 @ 11:31AM|#

No one Gonzales him because he's a complete moron -- at least two standard deviations below Corky from Life Goes On. . It's one thing to be involved in shady and possible illegal activities -- all politicians have a high tolerance for this fare -- but it's another thing to be an incompetent manager, a legal lightweight, and a PR retard. We elect this later category of dolts to Congress and the Presidency, but we expect our Attorney Generals to have at least a rudimentary grasp of the law.

|3.28.07 @ 11:33AM|#

Should have read "no one likes Gonzales because he's a complete moron."

I guess I should proofread before calling people morons...

|3.28.07 @ 11:33AM|#

I am not surprised at the quality of performance turned in by Gonzalez. I am mildly surprised at the political imcompetence (and this US Attorney matter really is a story about political incompetence) demonstrated by Rove. Now, I never bought into the "Rove is a genius!" myth that existed once upon a time, but goodness, he did oversee two successful Presidential elections, the first one for a challenger who was facing an incumbent VP in a time of extreme prosperity and the appearance of peace. That is indicative of SOME political skill, skill which now appears to have wholly disappeared.

Perhaps his opposition through 2004 was simply horribly inept.

Bhh|3.28.07 @ 11:41AM|#

Bet you they'll dig up someone worse.

Embolden is one of those words like "homeland" that I never heard used in 30+ years of American english. I'm not convinced it's a real word.

|3.28.07 @ 11:42AM|#

In the future it will be hard to field an all volunteer military under the same reasoning they have for the past several hundred years.

After all what will they claim your joining to defend exactly after government has stripped us of our Freedoms and Rights and our way of life is whatever way of life the current politician deem should be our way of life according to their own beliefs.

It will be a hard sell to get someone to sign away their own freedom to join the military to fight and defend freedoms that no longer exist to begin with. Maybe the politicians will have to fight their own wars in the future, which means we will have no more wars because if they had to lead the convoy themselves into places like Iraq the mission objective would quickly change.

Timothy|3.28.07 @ 11:47AM|#

Embolden is a perfectly cromulent word.

|3.28.07 @ 12:14PM|#

The Justice Department needs a fresh start.

A fresh start. Well yeah, in the same way North Korea needs a fresh start. When was the last time we had a AG that wasn't a straight-up tin despot.

|3.28.07 @ 12:24PM|#

Whenever a President says that "Appointee X has my full and complete confidence" it's hard to tell when he really means it, and when it's a Fredo kiss.

I'm betting on Fredo kiss for Gonzales.

|3.28.07 @ 12:25PM|#

Regardless of her professional performance, Janet Reno did host one hell of a dance party!

|3.28.07 @ 12:45PM|#

And I always though George Bush was Fredo.

VM|3.28.07 @ 12:50PM|#

"de stijl | March 28, 2007, 12:25pm | #
Regardless of her professional performance, Janet Reno did host one hell of a dance party!"

final episode of JRDP where she actually shows up!!!

Bhh|3.28.07 @ 1:35PM|#

Neil is Fredo.
George is Sonny.
Jeb is Michael.

|3.28.07 @ 1:48PM|#

Gonzales is nothing more or less than a Texas crony. I know that all administrations have a certain number of cronies--it's inherent in the system. But Bush seems to have outdone himself in this regard with Gonzales and the Miers debacle. I'm surprised his 10th Grade gym coach wasn't nominated for Education Secretary.

|3.28.07 @ 1:57PM|#

Gonzales is George Hamilton in Godfather II. Without the perfect tan.

|3.28.07 @ 2:01PM|#

Since Bush doesn't seem to cast a very wide net when he makes these appointments (Cheney, Gonzales, Miers), perhaps if I go stand next to him I could be the next attorney general.

One year and 9 months...it's almost over. Of course, I get to wait things out in a nice safe community; how many more soldiers will die brutal deaths while Bush tries to save face on the total disaster his administration has become?

|3.28.07 @ 2:16PM|#

All that now keeps him in office, save the friendship of the president, is the conviction of many Republicans that removing him would embolden the Democrats.

Is there a problem this administration has that can't be ignored so as to avoid emboldening the enemy?

|3.28.07 @ 2:21PM|#

Jim Baker = Tom Hayden
Cheney = ?
Rove = ?
Pierce = whoever Andy Garcia was playing in Part 3
Jenna (or maybe not-Jenna) = whoever Sofia Coppola was playing in Part 3

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby sleeps with the fishes.

|3.28.07 @ 2:27PM|#

Cheney is Clemenza.
Rove is Sollozzo. Yes, Sonny went for the deal, after all.

biologist|3.28.07 @ 4:10PM|#

damn you Timothy, for beating me to the pun(ch)

|3.28.07 @ 5:34PM|#

Andy,

A career Justice Department lawyer is likely to take the law too seriously for George Bush's tastes, and have too little respect for his royalist theories of presidential authority.

|3.28.07 @ 5:43PM|#

damn you Timothy, for beating me to the pun(ch)

Perhaps you need to embiggen your vocabulary.

Jim Baker = Tom Hayden I think you mean Hagen. Tom Hayden was one of Jane Fonda's husbands. Of course, I never saw the director's cut.

|3.29.07 @ 9:32AM|#

I make comment about military volunteers starting to wonder what freedoms exactly it is they are protecting.

Then this morning I read about the Marines banning tatoos. Damn it didn't take them long to add to the list of reasons you might not want to give up your freedom to defend something vailed as freedom.

My dad was a Marine and had two big Marine tatoos on his forearm. If he were alive today he would be pissed.

I know this is not directly related to the AG story but really when you think about it its all intertwined in that they are the machine eating up our freedoms for their own advancement.

Andy|3.29.07 @ 9:59AM|#

I get that joe, but is he really likely to be better than someone Bush can get through Congress right now? I mean, I'm not saying Bush will just sit on his ass all day, but the logical play for me here would be to continually nominate completely distasteful candidates you know have no chance of confirmed, then making hay out of the fact we can't get a new Attorney General because those Dems are playing partisan games with our nation's laws.