Sunday, April 22, 2007

Almost, but not quite.

The attorney general made a long-awaited appearance before a Senate subcommittee last week, where he was asked to explain the circumstances that led to the suspicious firing of eight United States attorneys across the country.

Sitting alone, under the camera's merciless glare and the more merciless questioning of lawmakers, Gonzales cut an almost tragic figure. His answers to questions even from Republican senators were bumbling and insufficient; the inescapable conclusion to which even those friendliest to him were brought was that the nation's highest law enforcement official was either lying or utterly incompetent.

The question that occurred to us was, "Wasn't there anyone better for this job?"

After six years of the Bush administration, the pattern is clear: For the president, a job candidate's chief qualification -- with some exceptions -- is loyalty; skills, ethics and background are secondary at best. That description fits Gonzales to a "T." His background was largely as a Bush loyalist; his most recent job was as the president's counsel in the White House.

But that attribute hardly qualified Gonzales to be attorney general. And now, the chickens have come home to roost. If political loyalty is your primary motivation, that paves the way for firing U.S. attorneys because they haven't proven themselves loyal as well. If you're simply unqualified for the job, then you mismanage the Department of Justice so badly that you don't even know what's going on right under your nose -- no matter how inappropriate your employees' behavior may be.

So we have an explanation for either scenario -- lies or mismanagement -- but we don't have a solution. That solution rests with the president and Gonzales, both of whom have abused this country's faith and trust. It's high time the president recognizes that cronyism has no place in this nation's government and that his practice of rewarding fealty with high positions -- "You're doing a heckuva job, Brownie" -- has resulted in incompetence at best and tragedy at worst.

As for Mr. Gonzales, we have no idea how any self-respecting public servant could show up at the office the Monday after such a pathetic performance. We hope that over this weekend, as Gonzales' support evaporates even among loyal Republicans, both the president and the attorney general get a grip on reality and realize that this country needs a new attorney general.