U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is in hot water again for his ethics (or lack of same). Now, his office has summarily dismissed 8 of their own-appointed US attorneys for not toeing the Administration’s sine qua non on loyalty above juris-prudence, and calls for his head are intensifying.
I’ve got a bit of a nit to pick with yesterday’s otherwise on-target
L.A. Times editorial that points out, yet again, that the president’s Latino lawn jockey hasn’t understood that his job as Attorney General is to serve the justice system, and thus the American people, and not the every law-trashing whim of a president who at this point may have fallen into the abyss of Nixionian paranoia. My beefette: The Times blames Bush’s ego--so often the tail side of the paranoia coin--for elevating his own Pancho Gonzales (Cisco was so much more benign, and handsome, than G.W.: my apologies to the memory of Duncan Renaldo) to an august mount grander than the height and breadth of Gonzales’ capabilities, but I think we need to hold Gonzales, and not the president, accountable for his continuing history of spinelessness, human rights abuses (remember his blueprint for torture and calling the Geneva Conventions “quaint?”), and unethical politics.
The clamor for Gonzales’ resignation follows two recent disclosures of impropriety. First, the firings, which, while licit, were carried out as retribution for the prosecutors’ going too soft on the Democrats and too hard on fellow Republicans—many of them had led investigations into cases of political corruption and all had positive job reviews--and were part of an even more insidious 2-year plot hatched right under Gonzales’ nose to “push out,” as the administration put it, many, many more. And, breaking earlier this week, were still further charges of the misuse by the FBI, under Gonzales’ watch, of Patriot Act powers to secretly obtain private information about U.S. citizens.
Even Republicans are expressing outrage at the runaround Gonzales initially gave Congress over the circumstances of the firings, with a number of representatives either signing off on a call for Gonzales’ ouster or stating privately that he should be shown the door. (Gonzales petulantly and patently refused to step down: his only master is the president, he says. For sure.) Republican Senator John Sununu was the first in the upper house to break party ranks, to be followed by Senator Gordon H. Smith, but more are promised to follow.
I’ve been on an intensified Gonzales watch since he was being considered for a Supreme Court seat. I’ve been on the moral high road looking down on Latino organizations like La Raza, Lulac, and the National Association of Latino Journalists whose position was, “He’s not that bad, he’s Hispanic.” See
All the President's Hombres here and read fast. By the time you’re done, Al may be finished too.
And, here's the latest from
AP on the AG, 94 - 2 agin.
