Tomorrow's New York Times lead editorial:
During the hearing on his nomination as attorney general, Alberto Gonzales said he understood the difference between the job he held — President Bush’s in-house lawyer — and the job he wanted, which was to represent all Americans as their chief law enforcement officer and a key defender of the Constitution. Two years later, it is obvious Mr. Gonzales does not have a clue about the difference.
He has never stopped being consigliere to Mr. Bush’s imperial presidency. If anyone, outside Mr. Bush’s rapidly shrinking circle of enablers, still had doubts about that, the events of last week should have erased them....
We opposed Mr. Gonzales’s nomination as attorney general. His résumé was weak, centered around producing legal briefs for Mr. Bush that assured him that the law said what he wanted it to say. More than anyone in the administration, except perhaps Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Gonzales symbolizes Mr. Bush’s disdain for the separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law.
On Thursday, Senator Arlen Specter, the senior Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, hinted very obliquely that perhaps Mr. Gonzales’s time was up. We’re not going to be oblique. Mr. Bush should dismiss Mr. Gonzales and finally appoint an attorney general who will use the job to enforce the law and defend the Constitution.
From the prosecutor purge to warrantless surveillance to civil rights to torture, the NYT delineates the travesties that have served for justice under Gonzales's watch. Their conclusion is what we all knew from the moment he was nominated to be Attorney General: not only was he marginally qualified for the position, his slavish devotion to this president and his willingness to subvert every principle upon which this nation was founded to serve that president made him an extremely dangerous choice for that position.
By all means, Bush should force Gonzales's resignation. That is not about to happen, so this Congress must be prepared to impeach this Attorney General.
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