Fallen US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was yet another close friend and aide of President George W. Bush. And he believed the post-9/11 war on terror justified tearing up the rule book, bypassing individual freedoms, undertaking widespread unconstitutional phone tapping and turning the Geneva Convention on its head at Guantanamo Bay. As such, he epitomized the neocon coterie around Bush who were so inflexibly sure of their mission that they were prepared to bend both rules and facts in order to carry it out. Now, however, Gonzales has been forced from office after a string of scandals, including his highly political sacking of eight state prosecutors and for his evasive and misleading explanations to a congressional enquiry.
Bush, of course, has defended his old friend to the bitter end protesting that Gonzales’ good name had been dragged through the mud “for political reasons.” This is breathtaking from a president whose administration has been only too prepared to play political hardball and drag its own opponents through the mud. The exposure of CIA operative Valerie Plame after her husband Ambassador Joseph Wilson had exposed White House lies is only the most startling example. Bush also appeared totally insensitive to the need for the nation’s chief law officer to be above reproach. There comes a point in any political career within a democracy, where rightly or wrongly, a political career can become so besmirched that the only honorable thing the holder can do is resign. The reason, of course, is that the real damage is being done to the standing and reputation of the administration.
Gonzales might have sought to regain some of his damaged reputation by insisting that this was the fundamental reasons for his quitting. Evidently he chose not to. Rather, he allowed Bush to present his ouster as a dastardly political coup. In truth, Gonzales may be glad of the chance to quit. There is nothing left for the neocons in the administration except increasingly feeble defense of the belligerent, poorly planned and incompetently carried-out schemes they presented to their president. Gonzales joins the list of once close advisers who have quit Bush. These include Karl Rove, the top adviser, Donald Rumsfeld the failed defense secretary and major mouthpiece of the Iraq debacle and Harriet Miers the former counsel to the president and Bush’s failed nominee for the Supreme Court. The majority of the ex-aides were closely connected to Bush when he ran Texas as governor and in the case of ailing vice president, Dick Cheney, had close connections with the Bush family and their oil interests.
Though Bush remains president, he is looking at 14 months of little more than damage control until he leaves office. There are no longer any glitz and kudos to working for the White House in this administration. Whomever Bush selects for the next attorney general will have a thankless task. Any controversial candidate is likely to be savaged by the Democrats during the nomination hearings. Working for Bush these days is not what it once was.
