After Alberto Gonzales’ performance before the Senate Judiciary Committee, some of his critics demanded that I admit I was wrong to defend him.
The critics have also been pretty adamant that President Bush – the only person who has a vote on whether Gonzales stays or goes – fire his attorney general. Yet on Monday, Bush described Gonzales as “an honest, honorable man, in whom I have confidence” and insisted that last week’s Senate hearing had reassured him that Gonzales could do the job. That same day, Gonzales said that he was staying at the Justice Department as long as he “can continue to serve effectively.” Asked about the attorney general at a Monday news conference, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino declared: “He’s staying.” Now, according to The Associated Press, even some of Gonzales’ harshest critics in the Senate are starting to concede that he’ll probably weather the storm – thanks to Bush’s support.
Looking back on last week’s events, I realize I was wrong to fall into the trap of thinking that the Senate hearing provided the AG one last chance to “save his job.” That was the media narrative but it lost sight of one important fact: The legislative branch doesn’t have the power to hire and fire personnel in the executive branch.
That point didn’t escape the attention of Dahlia Lithwick, senior editor of Slate.com and a liberal critic of the attorney general, who broke from the herd by suggesting that Gonzales actually had performed brilliantly before the Judiciary Committee. She said the testimony constituted a “home run for the president’s overarching theory of the unitary executive … in which the president is the big boss of the entire executive branch and has final say over everything that happens within it.” According to Lithwick, the purpose of last week’s drama on Capitol Hill may not have been to save one man’s job but to drive home a larger point: that regardless of what lawmakers think of the attorney general, he serves not at their pleasure but at the president’s. As Lithwick notes, we’ve seen the administration exert executive authority on issues ranging from terrorism detainees to the conduct of the war in Iraq, and this may be just the latest example.
That would mean that what happened in the Senate was just political theater, the kind of huffing and puffing that lawmakers in both parties engage in to convince supporters that they are carrying out their oversight function. But, in this case, were they? Since the Senate Judiciary Committee doesn’t have the authority to terminate the attorney general, it’s hard to tell how much of the assault on Gonzales was about a show of strength and how much was just for show.
The White House strategy all along appears to have been to put Gonzales front and center as a decoy fothe boss wanted him to do.
How can the left dispute that? They’re the ones who have said all along that Gonzales couldn’t think for himself and that Bush pulled his strings. Now they’ve had the chance to see it in action.
Score one for Team Bush. Actually, come to think of it, it was more like a save. And I, for one, am glad the game ended this way.
Ruben Navarrette’s e-mail address is ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.
(c) 2007, The San Diego Union-Tribune AP-NY
