Departure of the pinata AG

Opinion Journal:

Democrats finally got their man yesterday, as Alberto Gonzales announced his resignation so he'd no longer be a political "distraction" as Attorney General. President Bush accepted with regret and rued that his longtime friend had been "dragged through the mud for political reasons." The decision was probably inevitable, but it should also teach the White House a lesson in the kind of qualities Mr. Bush will need in a successor.

Mr. Gonzales made more than a few political mistakes, and his management at Justice will not be taught in case studies. Yet the great irony of his tenure is that he is hardly the hyper-partisan political actor that Democrats portrayed him to be. He's more a conciliator than fighter. His greatest mistake is that he underestimated the political assaults that would come his way once Democrats took Congress.

Thus did the entirely legitimate dismissal of nine U.S. Attorneys blossom into a "scandal" without a crime. Those Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President, and the Administration should have defended the firings as a proper exercise of Presidential political authority from the moment they were questioned. Instead, Mr. Gonzales allowed assorted Justice officials to claim such other reasons as competence for the dismissals, giving Democrats the opening they needed to charge a "coverup" and question his "credibility." The claims that Mr. Gonzales lied to Congress were always trumped up, but his ability to argue for Mr. Bush's other priorities was undermined.

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This has been a bogus scandal from the fertile mind of Chuck Schumer who has been trying to head off an investigation into Democrat voter fraud and he and the other members of his lynch mob have used the legitimate firing of US Attorneys to not only attack the administration and the AG but also make such prosecutions difficult at best when US attorneys do bring them. Yet voter fraud has been at the heart of Democrat attempts to steal elections since 2002.

Debra Saunders used the punching bag analogy instead of the pinata but she reaches similar conclusions. Gonzales' problem was that he was a nice man who was dealing with Democrats who are not nice people when you come between them and the power they seek. Rich Lowry describes them as the "Mob" which is pretty apt. He also notes the mob was wnning whether he stayed or not.

It is hard for me to imagine myself in his position, not the least of reasons being I would never be appointed, but if I were, I do not think I could listen to pompous jerks feigning moral authority they do not possess without hitting back. I am reminded of the story of a Baker & Boots lawyer during the days of the telegraph who received a demand from the attorney for the other side in a case and responded, "F*** you. Strong letter to follow." That is what Schumer and the Democrats like Leahy deserved.