Andrew Cohen, the editor and chief legal analyst for CBS News, has been making the case for Alberto Gonzales’ removal from office for quite a while, and today Cohen presents an indictment against the Attorney General for anyone who may need a primer on why Gonzales was such a destructive embarrassment.
When historians look back upon the disastrous tenure of Alberto R. Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States they will ask not only why he merited the job in the first place but why he lasted in it as long as he did. By any reasonable standard, the Gonzales Era at the Justice Department is void of almost all redemptive qualities. He brought shame and disgrace to the Department because of his lack of independent judgment on some of the most vital legal issues of our time. And he brought chaos and confusion to the department because of his lack of respectable leadership over a cabinet-level department among the most important in the nation.
He neither served the longstanding role as “the people’s attorney” nor fully met and tamed his duties and responsibilities to the constitution. He was a man who got the job not because he was supremely qualified or notably well-respected among the leading legal lights of our time, but because he had faithfully and with blind obedience served President George W. Bush for years in Texas (where he botched clemency memos in death penalty cases) and then as White House counsel (where he botched the nation’s legal policy on torture).
Well, yeah, sure. But other than this, was Gonzales that bad? Unfortunately, yes. On warrantless-searches, the Military Commissions Act, policy on detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and the Geneva Conventions, Gonzales was a disaster. On actual law enforcement, crime rates went up under Gonzales’ watch. On managing the Justice Department, he filled his staff with Pat Robertson acolytes, feigned ignorance while structural disasters unfolded, and showed shocking tolerance for corruption and politicization of a department that, for the benefit of the nation and the rule of law, needed to maintain independence.
For an administration known for its cronyism, and alas for an alarmingly incompetent group of cronies, Gonzales was the granddaddy of them all. He lacked the integrity, the intellect and the independence to perform his duties in a manner befitting the job for which he was chosen. And when he and his colleagues got caught in the act, his rationales and explanations for the purge of the U.S. Attorneys were so empty and shallow and incoherent that even the staunchest Republicans could not turn them into steeled spin. Devoid of any credibility, Gonzales in the end was a sad joke when he came to Capitol Hill.
Depressingly true.
In other Gonzales-related news from this afternoon:
* Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) implored the White House to work with lawmakers on picking a suitable replacement. He added that he believes the president needs to pick a “professional, not a partisan, and not a pal.” He added that Bush should “pick the best person, not his best friend.”
* Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has already submitted some names to the White House for consideration.
* Paul Kiel counts up DoJ resignations as a result of the U.S. Attorney scandal and notes all eight, including the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General. For an “overblown personnel matter,” that’s quite a few.
* Remember not too long ago when Alberto Gonzales was considered a leading candidate for the Supreme Court? Good times.
* Tim Grieve takes a look at the record of Solicitor General Paul Clement, who’ll soon take over as Acting Attorney General.
* David Iglesias, the former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, is quite pleased with today’s announcement, calling it “morning in America.” Asked if he felt vindicated, Iglesias told Paul Kiel he did, citing the long stream of resignations of those connected to the firings. And he said he was hearing expressions of relief from friends in the Justice Department. “Finally,” said one. “All the leaves have fallen off the tree and now the tree has fallen,” another told him.
* Today, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel was asked whether Bush tried to talk Alberto Gonzales out of resigning. “He did not,” Stanzel said.