If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says he resigns, can we believe him?
Related paradox: the likely forthcoming, "I Don't Recall": A Memoir.
One more: Can (soon-to-be-former) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales make a rock so big that even he can't pretend it isn't there?
The only person who is a bigger liar is his boss. I know, I listened to his remarks about the resignation: "Alberto Gonzales is a principled man."
Alberto Gonzales helped to destroy the good name of our country. He wrote the legal opinions that allowed the administration to disregard laws it did not wish to follow, and in so doing did real damage to the structure of our government and to the separation of powers. He took a department that was, by all accounts, superb, and trashed it. And by being so transparently interested only in advancing the interests of George Bush at the expense of the laws he swore to uphold, the Constitution, and the national interest, he deepened cynicism about government at a time when we badly needed leaders worthy of our trust and our confidence.
Goodbye and good riddance.
Shrill. Like it.
I'm sure we can still kick him around after he's gone.
Mr. Gonzales ... was a disgrace to the office. There are many roles he could have competently filled-- and did fill-- in his career. The Nation's chief law enforcement officer was not one of them. He abused his office for political gain, repeatedly misled Congress under oath --and probably out and out lied on more than one occasion-- and turned a once proud institution of government into an object of deep suspicion.
No one person can cure what ails the Justice Department these days. It will take determined leadership and reform by a large number of individuals. I have no confidence that the current Administration will put the right people in place. We may have to wait for a new Administration, and even then to fix what Alberto Gonzales did to the United States Department of Justice may take many years.
Someone in Balkin's comments notices that the effective date of the resignation is September 17th - appropriately enough, Constitution Day.
Lizardbreath at Unfogged:
Not that whoever replaces him is likely to be any better.
"I have selected her as my nominee for Attorney General because Ann Coulter has shown that she will uphold the high standards of integrity and professionalism that Alberto Gonzales set for the office."
delayed resignations send a very different message than a quick one. rather than saying "this guy's at fault and takes responsibility for it", a resignation after the scandal has died down sends no message of accountability. indeed, it seems to send exactly the opposite message. by leaving a good seven months after his first name became "embattled", gonzales seems to be saying "fuck you" to all the people who called for him to go months ago. "yes, i'm ready to go," he seems to say, "i just didn't want to give you the satisfaction."
arguably the rumsfeld resignation, made years after abu ghraib, and the rove resignation, made years after he was tarred by the plame investigation and months after his failure in the 2006 election, were also fuck you resignations. last year i noted that resignation didn't seem to be in the administration's scandal-management playbook because they didn't want to admit responsibility for things. in a sense the long delayed resignation is another attempt to deny the existence of the scandal.
I think "Fuck you" will be the way history summarizes this Administration.
Needlenose wonders why, why, why:
The race is on to find the most cynical (and hence, most probably accurate) interpretation for the sudden resignation of Alberto Gonzales as attorney general. Laura Rozen serves up Jack Balkin's collected conventional-wisdom challenges that everyone is trying to scheme around, focused on the problems of getting a new AG confirmed by a Democratic Senate.
My take is simple. From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products (in this case, a new A.G.) in August. So the stonewall. But the GOP, already facing disaster in 2008, needed Gonzales gone to deprive the Democrats of a campaign issue. So I bet Congressional Republicans told Bush to fire him or they would agree with the Democrats to impeach.
Thoreau at Unqualified Offerings:
Somehow tar and feathers just don’t feel sufficient. I want to call for something more…substantial…um, I mean “enhanced.” (Gotta stay on top of today’s DOJ terminology.) But calling for an “enhanced” approach would make me just as much of a bloody thug as him, so I can’t go there. I have no desire to burn in hell alongside Gonzales. But I do want to inflict some sort of punishment. So we have to stick to stuff that’s creative but not “enhanced.”
All I’ve got right now is that we’ll tie him to a chair and force him to watch Paris Hilton opining on theoretical physics. Or maybe we’ll make him eat all his meals at McDonald’s. That would piss me off half-way through the first meal.
Wait, I’ve got it: We’ll make him change the diapers of each and every LGF poster. And to make sure that those diapers are perpetually full, we’ll put them on a flight with a Sikh. Yes, I realize that Sikhs are neither Muslim nor Arab, but LGF posters don’t know that.
I am sure there is a lot more worthwhile stuff out there, but enough for now.
Update:
Mike Dorf:
Alberto Gonzales Resigns to Spend More Time With Karl Rove's Family
That's what I would write if I wrote for The Onion. But I don't.
The Center for American Progress:
Who could have imagined that things could get worse [than under Ashcroft]?
Yet Ashcroft’s successor often seemed more a White House functionary than the attorney general of the United States. Alberto Gonzales was ever-willing to subordinate the needs of justice to the demands of his political masters—crossing lines that even his predecessor had refused to cross. His cavalier disregard for the rule of law and his tenuous grasp of the responsibilities of his office were an embarrassment to the Department of Justice and an insult to the American people.
Now Gonzales is gone, but the department he headed lies in ruins—its morale shattered and its credibility at an all-time low. If the damage is to be repaired, there must be not only a change in leadership but a change of heart. If Americans are to regain their confidence in the administration of justice, we must have an attorney general of unimpeachable integrity who understands his (or her) duty to uphold the Constitution and is prepared to carry it out.
Comments