US Attorney General Gonzales Resigns

[Rowan Berkeley]

Attorney General Gonzales Resigns
A WALL STREET JOURNAL NEWS ROUNDUP
August 27, 2007 10:06 a.m.
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB117408132373139865.html

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will announce his resignation later today, a Bush administration official said. Mr. Gonzales's resignation came Friday in a phone call with President Bush, and the two had lunch together at Mr. Bush's Crawford ranch Sunday, along with Mr. Gonzales's wife. Mr. Gonzales delivered his formal resignation letter at that meeting, with the resignation effective Sept. 16. The embattled attorney general came to the decision to leave on his own, administration sources said, after having some time to reflect during a recent vacation. He felt the controversy stirred by the firings of several U.S. attorneys was becoming "too much of a distraction" for the Justice Department to carry on its mission effectively, a senior administration official said. There's also still enough time left in Bush's term to get a replacement confirmed by Congress. Mr. Gonzales's office said he will make a public statement at 10:30 this morning at the Justice Department. Mr. Bush is expected to make a statement at 11:30 a.m. A senior Justice Department official said that a likely temporary replacement for Mr. Gonzales is Solicitor General Paul Clement, who would take over until a permanent replacement is found.

Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff was among those mentioned as possible successors. However, a senior administration official said the matter had not been raised with Mr. Chertoff. Mr. Bush leaves Washington next Monday for Australia, and Mr. Gonzales's replacement might not be named by then, the official said. The first statement on the Gonzales resignation came from John Edwards whose presidential campaign reminded that he had first called for Gonzales to step down on March 13. Mr. Edwards' quote was short: "Better late than never." Reacting to Monday's developments, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.), said that Mr. Gonzales's department had "suffered a severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system to be corrupted by political influence."

In a sustained seven-month assault, members of Congress pilloried Mr. Gonzales as inept and a liar over the Justice Department's firing of eight U.S. attorneys, a move that has ballooned into one of the biggest battles of Mr. Bush's second term. Mr. Gonzales's critics said the prosecutors were inappropriately fired and raise suspicions of political motives. As even some Republicans expressed lack of confidence in Mr. Gonzales, Mr. Bush stood by him, dismissing the attacks as political theatre. After the resignation of John Ashcroft, the first Bush administration attorney and an occasional thorn in the side of the White House, Mr. Bush nominated Mr. Gonzales, his longtime friend and counselor dating back to their days in Texas, to head the Justice Department. His nomination as the first Hispanic attorney general after the 2004 election was greeted as a welcome fresh start after the divisive Mr. Ashcroft. New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer said at the time: "It's encouraging that the president has chosen someone less polarizing. We will have to review his record very carefully, but I can tell you already he's a better candidate than John Ashcroft." This year, Sen. Schumer led a failed "no-confidence" motion in the Senate against Mr. Gonzales.

A confluence of forces -- some of his own making, some beyond his control, and some the fault of his putative allies in the White House -- came together to undermine the 52-year-old lawyer, who was once seen as one of the rising young stars of the Bush administration. Mr. Gonzales's supreme loyalty to President Bush, whom he served as counsel in Texas, helped him become attorney general. Polite and reserved, he has little of the charisma and political flair of his predecessor, Mr. Ashcroft, a former senator and governor. Staff members and colleagues call him Judge. It's a reference to his time on the Texas supreme court, but also an honorific that sums up his temperament. Mr. Gonzales grew up in the small town of Humble, Texas, one of eight children of Mexican migrants. In recent months, his strongest asset -- his close ties to Mr. Bush -- became a liability. Those ties have served him well since 1994, when the then-governor of Texas plucked him from a law firm to be his counsel. Democrats have framed the attorneys controversy as a sign of Mr. Gonzales's lack of independence from the White House, charging that his loyalty to the president had politicized an important part of the justice system.

The furor left Mr. Gonzales frustrated and pained. Asked to sum up how he would want his work as presidential counsel and attorney general to be remembered, he said he believed he eventually "will be vindicated." He added: "I do hope people will be fair in assessing what we have done to protect America." Mr. Gonzales's defenders say he was being pummeled for actions that aren't extraordinary at all. They note that other administrations have replaced U.S. attorneys in bunches, sometimes on a grander scale. President Clinton changed all 93 U.S. attorneys when he came into office, moving out the Republican appointees and replacing them with his own. His critics say the latest firings were different. Select prosecutors appointed by Mr. Bush himself were targeted for political reasons, they say. The shifting public explanations of the matter compounded Mr. Gonzales's problems.

[karlos]

If Bush says Gonzales was fine
Then why should he have to resign?
Unless Bush is complicit
in matters illicit
And simply is lacking of spine.

this was a limerick on the subject i found