Posted by
Bert Chapman on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 11:11:58 AM
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resignation this week concluded a
political torture chamber which had gone on for several months and
limited the Administrations's ability to effectively communicate why
the NSA wireless surveillance program is necessary and why the firings
of some US attorneys are politically justifiable. Gonzales is a
good man but he was ill-equipped to be an effective manager of the
Justice Dept's complex bureaucracy and he was clueless in how to defend
administration programs against rapacious political opponents like
Patrick Leahy and Charles Shumer. If I had been forced to resign
like that, I would have delivered as many rhetorical kicks in the groin
to Leahy and Shumer as I possibly could in my resignation speech.
Different names have been floated in the conservative and
nonconservative political blogospheres as possible replacements for
Gonzales. One name, I've heard which I will heartily
endorse is former Missouri Senator Jim Talent who currently is a
Heritage Foundation scholar. Talent has strong substantive
knowledge of national security matters and would be a more effective
communicator of administration anti-terrorist policies than Gonzales
was. I think he would have a relatively easy Senate confirmation due to the
tradition of senatorial courtesy and by the need for the Justice Dept.
to have a firm hand on the till who can begin to restore departmental
continuity.
Loyalty to friends is an admirable trait, but there is a danger of a
President remaining loyal to an official out of friendship even though
that official;s performance, whether intentional or inadvertent, has
damaged the President's political authority and the credibility of his
administration's policies. All of those things happened with
Gonzales, and it's time for the Bush Adminstration and its
congressional critics to move beyond the Gonzales affair and focus on
important issues facing the Justice Dept. in areas such as
immigration, terrorism, intelligence gathering., drug policy, and other areas.