Who's to Blame for Alberto Gonzales?

(Video from TPMtv)

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has finally been shown the door, following close on the heels of Karl Rove, and virtually no one has stepped forward to say, "Gee, that's too bad." In fact, perhaps his one redeeming feature was that he was finally able to unite Democrats and Republicans in their demands for his resignation. He joins a long list of failed Bushies who have left nothing in their wake but failure and deception.

Gonzales was the bumbling, lying clown that sat in front of congressional committees and told them that, gee whiz, he had no idea at all about pretty much anything that was happening around him. Apparently, he was just too darn busy doing crossword puzzles to pay attention to what was going on in his Justice Department.

What's that you say, someone fired a bunch of U.S. Attorneys because they weren't playing ball with the administration? Nope, I never heard anything about that. I harrassed a sick man in the hospital to get him to sign off on illegal wiretapping? Nah, I was just there to bring him a box of chocolates.

His resignation comes just days after Bush re-iterated his support for Gonzales, saying "Why should he resign? He's done nothing wrong." Of course, when Bush talks about right and wrong, you have to remember that he apparently uses different definitions for those words than the rest of us.

Although it's easy to blame Gonzales (way too easy), it's Bush who is really at fault. Once again, he placed a person in a vital position of power in the U.S. government, not based on his ability, but based on his loyalty to him. It's his standard operating procedure. When selecting an Attorney General of the United States, the most important thing in the president's mind is to make sure that person will do his bidding, be his lap dog. Let's not worry about finding someone who is competent and capable, or about the equal administration of justice. Such quaint ideas, anyway.

So Gonzales will likely go down in the history books as one of the worst Attorney Generals ever, working for a president who will be remembered as one of the worst presidents ever. Not a very enviable legacy, and probably not what he had envisioned when he came to Washington with his best friend George nearly seven years ago.

There had been speculation that Bush was supporting Gonzales because he didn't want to have to go through a difficult confirmation process, which makes his apparent choice of Michael Chertoff to replace Gonzales a bit puzzling. Chertoff, after all, was the man in charge of Homeland Security two years ago when he allowed New Orleans, a major American city, to go under without even much of a fight.

But hey, heck of a job, Alberto!