Why have conservatives deserted Attorney General Alberto Gonzales?
You might call it the Ted Olson Effect.
No, Olson, the former solicitor general and all-around legal superstar, hasn’t had anything to do with Gonzales’s problems at the Justice Department.
But Olson is at the top of a very long list of Republican legal talent, a list made up of dozens of lawyers who could have run the Justice Department better than Gonzales.
When conservatives watched as President Bush passed over those stars in favor of the less-than-stellar Gonzales, they kept quiet.
It was the president’s call to make, they reasoned. Also, many of them didn’t view the attorney general post as quite so consequential as a Supreme Court pick — thus, they howled when Bush tried to place Harriet Miers on the Court but kept quiet when he picked Gonzales for Justice.
And, on the same issue, some were secretly happy when Bush chose Gonzales for attorney general precisely because it made it less likely that Gonzales would be tapped in the event of a new Court vacancy.
But now, with Gonzales showing the world that he isn’t up to the job, a lot of conservatives have had it. They’re mad — at Gonzales, at Bush, and probably a little at themselves.
Why didn’t they push harder for better candidates? People like Olson, or Michael Chertoff, or George Terwilliger, or William Barr, or a bunch of others?
Whatever the reason, they didn’t. But now, a number of conservatives — the editors of National Review among them — are calling on Gonzales to resign.
In doing so, they’re a little ahead of Republicans in the Senate.
Sure, there was Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who looked Gonzales in the eye at last week’s Judiciary Committee hearings on the U.S. attorneys mess and said, “It was handled incompetently. The communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It’s generous to say that there were misstatements. That’s a generous statement … And I believe that the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.”
So far, however, we haven’t seen other Senate Republicans joining in. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the top GOP senator on the Judiciary Committee, has issued broad hints, but hasn’t come out and said Gonzales should go.
Other Republicans who were quite hard on Gonzales — like Sam Brownback (Kan.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.) and Lindsey Graham (S.C.) — have also refrained from saying that Gonzales should go.
Why?
Some believe it’s the president’s decision and they don’t want to get involved.
Others don’t want to give Democrats a victory. “You’d be giving them a political gift,” says one Hill Republican. “They could say, ‘Even Republicans want Gonzales to go.’“
And still others worry about what would happen after Gonzales goes. “Do you remember the Ashcroft hearing?” the Hill Republican asks. “The Gonzales hearing? They were rough. Even if you nominate God himself, you’re going to have an ugly hearing — a two- or three-day hearing with a Democratic chairman.”
Which means, at least so far, the White House isn’t under pressure from Republicans to get rid of Gonzales. And so this week, George W. Bush told reporters, “The attorney general went up and gave a very candid assessment, and answered every question he could possibly answer, honestly answer, in a way that increased my confidence in his ability to do the job.”
That was a little much even for some White House allies, who privately asked what, given the AG’s performance last week, Gonzales might have done that would have decreased the president’s confidence in him.
Actually, they probably don’t want to know the answer to that.
In any event, the White House appears set in stone on this issue. Of course, it was also set in stone on the issue of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Bush stuck with him long after many Republicans said he should go.
It was only after last November’s elections — about 12 hours after last November’s elections — that the president finally decided it was time for a change.
So, if it took a massive setback like losing the House and Senate to change Bush’s mind on Rumsfeld, what might it take to change his mind on Gonzales?
It’s hard to say. But certainly if Specter and Sessions and Brownback and Graham and Coburn and other Republicans looked the president in the eye and said Gonzales must go, it might make a difference.
Or maybe not.
York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.
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