Someday someone will publish the real story behind Alberto Gonzales. And the real story (or the interesting part of it at least) won't be about why he finally resigned, but rather why he stayed on so long.
After he staggered through the last couple of brutally punishing Senate hearings, I figured, yeah, well, the guy is just going to keep going no matter what they hit him with. Bush seemed similarly dedicated to supporting Gonzales, no matter how many holes the guy was shooting in the bottom of the lifeboat. So I was surprised when I heard the news today that Bush was finally cutting him loose.
It seems like Gonzales could have saved himself a lot of humiliation by quitting a few months ago, and Bush could have avoided some political damage if he fired him sooner. (Though one wonders if it really makes a difference if it would have raised the President's approval ratings to, say, 31-percent from 29-percent). To hear Bush publicly regret that Gonzales' "good name" was "dragged through the mud" due to political infighting leads me to believe that Bush is either truly delusional or that he just wasn't watching C-Span when Gonzales self-immolated in front of the Senate. Granted, it was pretty hard to watch. I don't think I've heard the phrase "I can't recall" so many times since Reagan was in front of Congress for the Iran-Contra hearings.
But he's gone now and the machine just keeps rolling on. I'm counting the days till January 2009 when this crippled administration finally leaves office and let's us get to the huge task of counting the cost and beginning the damage control.
The scariest thing, I believe, is that a few years ago some people were talking about Gonzales being a candidate for the open slot on the Supreme Court after Justice Sandra Day O'Connor resigned. Imagining this guy sitting in black robes on the most powerful judicial bench in the country, in a job for life from which he could not realistically be fired, just gives me the cold shivers. I guess we dodged a bullet on that one.
So that's Ashcroft, Rumsfeld, Card, Rove, Myers and Gonzales gone... who's next? Who's left?? It's going to be a long slog till 2009.