- The reviews are in: The Bush White House pronounces the
president "pleased" with his solicitor's response to the rabble.
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- It is a discreet pleasure.
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- While the president may be satisfied with Attorney General
Alberto Gonzales' testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the response
of just about everyone else -- including some of the nation's most conservative
Republicans -- was anything but positive.
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- The online report on the testimony at the site of the
National Review, America's leading conservative magazine, was headlined:
"Alberto Gonzales strikes out."
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- The report declared the Attorney General's testimony
about his role in the U.S. Attorneys scandal to have been "disastrous."
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- "Judging by his testimony before the Senate Judiciary
Committee Thursday, there are three questions about the U.S. attorneys
mess that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wants answered: What did I
know? When did I know it? And why did I fire those U.S. attorneys?"
observed writer Byron York, no liberal he. "As the day dragged on,
it became clear -- painfully clear to anyone who supports Gonzales -- that
the attorney general didn't know the answers."
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- For the record, Gonzales hit what many believe to have
been a record for "don't recalling" by a Cabinet member appearing
before an oversight hearing: 64. And that does not count the dozens of
"do-not-remember" and "can't-quite-recollect" variations.
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- But Gonzales will be worrying less about National Review
than about Republicans on the Judiciary Committee. Sure, Democrats were
tough on Gonzales, but many of the roughest critiques came from the Attorney
General's partisan "allies."
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- The ranking Republican on the committee, Pennsylvania's
Arlen Specter (voting record), greeted Gonzales Thursday by suggesting
that the Attorney General's account of his "limited" involvement
in the firing of U.S. Attorneys who appear to have rejected White House
political czar Karl Rove's demand that they politicize prosecutions was
"significantly if not totally at variance with the facts."
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- After the hearing, Specter said, "I think your credibility
has been significantly impaired because of the panorama of responses you
have made..."
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- Specter, a veteran prosecutor, said Gonzales' testimony
had raised significant questions about his "ability to manage the
department has been severely undercut by the way he has handled these resignations."
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