Absolutely essential to Bush-Cheney-Rove ambitions for saddling an authoritarian regime on Americans have been Cabinet and agency executives aided by apathetic young Republican zombie recruits sworn to keep their mouths shut and follow orders, no matter how unconscionable and unethical or hostile to the U.S. Constitution and the public interest.
In Albert Gonzales, George W. Bush had the superlative—a man so bereft of ethics, so shallow in intelligence, so weak in character, so indifferent to malfeasance in the presidency, so amenable to betrayal of the public trust that he easily could be relied on to corrupt the public's last line of defense against treachery, the Department of Justice.
When asked in congressional hearings to account for his conduct, Gonzales answered 70 times he didn't know or couldn't remember, tantamount either to admitting sheer incompetence or lying under oath.
The litany of his impeachable offenses is ugly. Using his thin legal background as authority, he ruled Geneva Conventions on humane treatment were "quaint" and could be ignored and torture justified. He abandoned constitutional protections of privacy by approving eavesdropping on Americans without court approval. He conspired in firing prosecutors insufficiently loyal to Bush dogma.
His worst crime, however, was condoning White House lawlessness. Gonzales bartered away the public's protection against political perfidy in exchange for a job he couldn't obtain on merit.
Gonzales is the worst of the worst.
As happens eventually to those who bargain with the devil, Gonzales has lost his usefulness. He's a liability and distraction for Bush, as were Defense secretary Rumsfeld and Bush "brain" Karl Rove and the pitiable Bush idolater and groupie, Harriet Miers, whom the president senselessly wanted on the U.S. Supreme Court as a "most qualified" justice. Gonzales is being thrown overboard.
If the Bush-Cheney strategy holds, a malleable replacement will be nominated. Homeland Security chieftain Michael Chertoff, a former federal judge and prosecutor who famously presided over the Katrina disaster and expressed confidence in FEMA director Michael ("heckuva job") Brown, is mentioned.
The president will try to panic spineless Democrats and blindly loyal Republicans into confirming a quick replacement, hinting at some imminent terrorist threat as reason for quick action.
Gonzales' successor will be obliged to endorse Gonzales' notorious decisions and promise to make future legal decisions dictated by the White House. Democrats who've anguished about their humiliating rubberstamping of Bush's egregious and illegal policies in the past now could redeem themselves by only demanding Bush nominate an attorney general who's demonstrably honest.
That assumes, of course, Democrats have any spines and courage left.
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Pat Murphy is the retired publisher of the Arizona Republic and a former radio commentator.
