Mcjoan and litigatormom have already started rounding up the coverage of Alberto Gonzales' Senate testimony. As mcjoan observed, the New York Times editorial reads like a blog post - and they're not the only ones. Many in the traditional media appear to have been bitten by the snark bug.
Byron York:
Judging by his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, there are three questions about the U.S. Attorneys mess that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wants answered: What did I know? When did I know it? And why did I fire those U.S. Attorneys?
Chicago Tribune:
Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales faced two unappealing possibilities in his testimony to Congress on Thursday. He could admit that he was largely out of the loop on some of the most important decisions that the Justice Department can make: Who should serve as U.S. attorney? Or he could acknowledge he was at the center of the hugely bungled dismissals of several federal prosecutors.
In other words: Was he clueless? Or incompetent?
Unfortunately for Gonzales, his hours of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee created the impression that he was some of both.
Dallas Morning News:
In his Senate testimony yesterday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said, "The moment I believe I can no longer be effective, I will resign as attorney general." With respect, we suggest that Mr. Gonzales watch the tape of his disastrous showing in Thursday's hearing. Seeing is believing.
CBS News.com:
Me? I’m more in the camp of the unnamed "White House officials" who reportedly said that the Attorney General was "going down in flames." I thought that Gonzales’ performance was among the worst I have ever seen offered by a public official on Capitol Hill. The Attorney General, our nation’s top law enforcement official, was evasive, incomplete and at times even incoherent with his explanations about what he knew, and when he knew it, when it came to the decisions that were made about the prosecutors by the Justice Department and White House. He kept saying "I don’t know" or "I don’t recall" and he was particularly infuriating to the senators when he used as a crutch the notion that current investigations into the scandal have precluded him doing more to offer them relevant answers to their earnest questions.
....
Whether he is a liar, as some say, or a fool, as others contend, the consequence ought to be the same. And if you didn’t believe it before surely you should consider it now in the wake of his appalling testimony before the Committee: Gonzales simply isn’t good enough to merit the job he now has. The President may be "pleased" by a performance he never saw but I suspect that many other Americans would beg to differ.
Also see Time magazine, Eve Fairbanks for The New Republic, the Seattle Times and Fort Worth Star-Telegram both here, and the San Diego Union-Tribune. This guy has no support left.
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