May 12, 2007
Gonzales lacks the ability or the moral compass to do his job

Consider Mr. Gonzales's performance the other day before the House Judiciary Committee, where the chairman, John Conyers Jr., framed the questioning with admirable simplicity: who made up the list of prosecutors to be fired, and why? That should not be a hard question. The nine prosecutors who are now known to have been purged — it was eight until the case of Todd Graves of Missouri came to light this week — are nearly 10 percent of all United States attorneys. It defies belief that an attorney general would allow so many top officials to be fired without being well aware of the reasons.

Yet that was just what Mr. Gonzales claimed. He delegated, he was not informed, he just could not recall. None of it was believable. When asked by Representative Robert Wexler who decided to fire David Iglesias, the United States attorney in New Mexico, Mr. Gonzales flatly stated that President Bush and Vice President Cheney did not. He said he did not know who chose individual prosecutors to be fired, but he was certain that it was not his bosses.