With [tag]Attorney General[/tag] [tag]Alberto Gonzales[/tag] poised to testify under oath tomorrow before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the embattled AG is engaged in a bit of p.r. offensive, publishing a WaPo op-ed and previewing tomorrow’s testimony. It’s hard to offer any real analysis of Gonzales’ previews; he doesn’t exactly say much. (James Brown’s “Talkin’ loud but saying nothing” was made for just such an occasion.)
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales offered a measured apology for his mistakes in the dismissal of eight United States attorneys, but said in testimony prepared for a Senate hearing on Tuesday that he had “nothing to hide” and that none of the prosecutors were removed to influence the outcome of a case.
In his testimony, which was released Sunday by the Justice Department, Mr. Gonzales provided an account of his actions that was largely consistent with his past assertions that his role was very limited and his recollection fragmentary.
Mr. Gonzales said that he did not select any of the prosecutors slated for dismissal last year and that he largely delegated the effort to his former chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson.
“I have nothing to hide,” he said in his testimony, “and I am committed to assuring the Congress and the American public that nothing improper occurred here.”
The “measured apology” is of particular interest. In his Post op-ed, for example, he tells the purged prosecutors that he’s sorry for his role “in allowing this matter to spin into an undignified Washington spectacle.” Similarly, in his planned testimony, Gonzales is prepared to say, “I am sorry for my missteps that have helped fuel the controversy.”
But that’s not much of an apology. He’s not sorry for firing these prosecutors without cause; he’s sorry his firings became a scandal. He’s not sorry for a massive scheme to use U.S. Attorneys’ offices to focus on bogus “voter fraud” charges; he’s sorry that everyone’s talking about it. That’s not actual regret. It’s akin to getting drunk at a wedding, beating up the best man, telling off the bride’s mother, and getting sick during the toast … and then expressing regret “if any of the other guests had an unpleasant time.”
It kind of misses the point of why everyone’s upset.
Apologies necessarily require some kind of acknowledgement of wrongdoing. Gonzales wants to thread the needle — admit that he’s partially responsible for the fiasco, but deny any substantive mistakes. As a result, he’s contrite, but not for anything too significant.
An LA Times story notes some of Gonzales’ planned acknowledgements. The AG wishes he would have “handled this differently.” He thinks perhaps the process should have been “more rigorous.” He wishes the firings had been dealt with “in a more personal and respectful way.” When he denied his earlier involvement in the process, he was “less than precise with my words when discussing the resignations.”
Anyone buying this?
Gonzales may or may not realize it, but he’s in the midst of a major, multi-faceted scandal. Tomorrow, he’s walking into a buzz saw of scrutiny. Carefully crafted apologies, followed by a faulty memory and buck-passing, isn’t going to impress anyone. Indeed, reviewing his statements from the weekend, it seems Gonzales is still a couple of weeks behind — he’s responding (inadequately) to questions from March, while the scandal has spiraled in April to include more damning evidence, missing emails, a massive cover-up, and a series of contradictory claims.
If Gonzales expects to get away with expressing regret for an “undignified Washington spectacle,” he’s going to be very disappointed.