The conventional wisdom had been that Bush would use a Supreme Court vacancy to make Alberto Gonzalez the first Hispanic high court justice. By tapping him as attorney general, Bush seemed to be indicating a slightly different career course for his long-time counsel.
Republicans close to the White House said on Thursday that the choice of Alberto R. Gonzales as attorney general was part of a political strategy to bolster Mr. Gonzales’s credentials with conservatives and position him for a possible Supreme Court appointment.
These Republicans said Mr. Gonzales had been widely viewed as one of President Bush’s top choices for the court. But by first sending him to the Justice Department, they said, Mr. Bush could then nominate a conservative favored by his political base to fill the first vacancy that arises.
For Mr. Gonzales, tenure as attorney general would allow him to demonstrate his reliability to conservative leaders, many of whom say they are unsure of his views on issues like abortion and affirmative action, Republicans said. One Republican said Mr. Gonzales’s nomination hearings in Congress would also “get out of the way” the debate over legal memorandums that Mr. Gonzales supervised as White House counsel.
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The strategy, which Republicans said was in large part the work of Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser, would clear the way for Mr. Bush to make his first nomination to the Supreme Court a trusted conservative, thus showing gratitude to his political base for the large role they played in giving him a second term.
I have to admit, this is a clever strategy. Conservatives are genuinely concerned about whether Gonzales has a blind commitment to the right-wing agenda. (The joke in far-right circles is “Alberto Gonzales” is Spanish for “David Souter.”) Rove’s plan would allow Gonzales to prove to the right how loony he really is, thus clearing his path to the Supreme Court.
The only gamble: Bush will have to hope for more than one Supreme Court vacancy. And the rest of us will have to count on the continued good health of John Paul Stevens.