I watched most of embattled Attorney General (AG) Alberto Gonzales’ testimony to the Senate Judiciary committee today over the internet (It was raining and snowing outside).
After it was over, the White House press office quickly issued this release saying:

President Bush was pleased with the Attorney General’s testimony today. After hours of testimony in which he answered all of the Senators’ questions and provided thousands of pages of documents, he again showed that nothing improper occurred. He admitted the matter could have been handled much better, and he apologized for the disruption to the lives of the U.S. Attorneys involved, as well as for the lack of clarity in his initial responses.

The Attorney General has the full confidence of the President, and he appreciates the work he is doing at the Department of Justice to help keep our citizens safe from terrorists, our children safe from predators, our government safe from corruption, and our streets free from gang violence.

First, if the President is pleased with the AG, then the heck with what everyone is saying because if the President wants him to stay, he will stay. It’s his show.

But, didn’t the President say he was happy with Rumsfeld? Hmmm.

Second, The Western Word (TWW) was not “pleased” by the testimony of the AG. This whole thing was big bunch of “nothing” and due to several flaws and missteps by the AG and the Administration it became “something” that the democrats grabbed on to. The Democrats are very good at this and the Republicans suck at it. But, **it happens when you lose the majority.

Third, the President can fire any of his appointed people at any time and that’s the bottom line. The U.S. Attorneys who are appointed do not do the majority of the work in these offices; the work is left up to the career people (civil servants). The U.S. Attorneys are basically office managers who direct the career people.

And fourth, the bottom line is that these eight fired U.S. Attorneys were not quite far enough to the right side of the line for this administration. I don’t believe the AG or the Administration tried to tamper with any cases, but they just did not like that these people were not far enough to the right for them on some issues they were being tasked with.

Finally, Gonzales is a good person, but it seems he may be in over his head being in charge of an organization of 110,000 people. There’s a cloud over the Justice Department now. Only time will tell if the President removes the cloud. I really miss the West Wing. President Matt Santos would have done better…