QUOTE OF THE DAY…. Disgraced former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is still reflecting on his absurd, scandal-plagued tenure as the nation’s chief law-enforcement official. In particular, Gonzales has some thoughts on what transpired when his Justice Department politicized federal prosecutions to an unprecedented extent, and U.S. Attorneys were purged from their jobs if they hesitated to support a partisan agenda.
“We should have,” Gonzales says in hindsight, “abandoned the idea of removing the U. S. attorneys once the Democrats took the Senate. Because at that point we could really not count on Republicans to cut off investigations or help us at all with investigations. We didn’t see that at the Department of Justice. Nor did the White House see that. Karl didn’t see it. If we could do something over again, that would be it.”
So remember that lesson learned: Before you do something really cool, make sure no one can investigate you. Especially useful advice in this town.
And to think, Alberto Gonzales had trouble finding a job after he resigned in disgrace. Who would have thought?
Honestly, Gonzales’ comments sound a bit like an internal monologue, which he wasn’t supposed to articulate out loud and on the record. It’s not that his remarks are wrong; it’s that they’re painfully true. Gonzales politicized federal law enforcement, but now realizes that Democrats care too much about the rule of law to let something like that slide.
And just as an aside, I wonder what the reaction would be like if Eric Holder and the Obama White House coordinated to fire federal prosecutors who refused to base prosecutorial decisions on what’s best for Democrats and specific campaigns. Would Republicans support impeachment hearings, or would they prefer to just skip right to voting on impeachment articles on the House floor?
