Unimpeachable?

Fellow blogger Brent Budowsky has decided Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should be impeached for refusing to follow the law. Mr. Budowsky noted Gonzales’s “goon-like” trip to John Ashcroft’s sickbed, now made famous by James Comey’s congressional testimony this week. I can’t say I agree this merits impeachment, but I too was struck by the notion of Andrew Card and Gonzales playing Tony Soprano and Mob deputy taking the opportunity to intimidate someone suffering in a hospital bed.

What is more important than their tacky, cruel tactic at Ashcroft’s bedside was the underlying untruth that the warrantless surveillance program caused no controversy within the Bush administration. Yep, that was brought to us by AG AG himself in his 2006 testimony before Congress. “None of the reservations dealt with the program we are talking about today,” he said at the time. Then, of course, he was equally reassuring about who took the lead in firing the U.S. attorneys — he wasn’t involved; no, he was involved; well, he isn’t so sure. It is beginning to seem like a joke we haven’t been let in on.  

What is missing in this good friend of George W. Bush? Shame, pride, dignity? Is he at all ashamed at his performance in his job and the many questions and doubts he has raised about the credibility and integrity of the Justice Department? Does he take pride in his service to this president and to this country? Does he have any dignity left after these last months? By staying on in the face of calls for his resignation, Gonzales has shown he does not believe that the qualifications and service of the nation’s top law enforcement officer must be unimpeachable. If Bush continues to abide him with his “confidence,” then he tacitly agrees.