Alberto Gonzales: No Mas !

QueEx

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<font size="5"><center>Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Resigns</font size></center>

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Alberto Gonzales

By Howard Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, August 27, 2007; 10:19 AM

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has resigned from his post, according to an administration official, ending a controversial cabinet tenure that included clashes with Congress over the firing of nine U.S. attorneys and over the use of warrantless wiretaps in the war on terror.

The official said Gonzales told President Bush of his decision on Friday, but the announcement was withheld until he met with Bush at the president's Crawford ranch. His resignation will be announced at a press conference scheduled for 10:30 today.

Gonzales' decision was first reported by the New York Times on its Web site.

Gonzales' resignation marks the loss of another Bush loyalist at a time when the president's support in public opinion polls has been lagging and amid a fight with Congress over the future of Iraq war policy. Although Bush consistently expressed confidence in Gonzales, a longtime ally from Texas, the attorney general's support in Congress had withered after a series of run-ins that prompted some lawmakers to allege he had committed perjury.

His testimony on issues such as a federal wiretap program required follow-up explanations and was contradicted by documents or the statements of other federal officials. At hearings on the U.S. attorney firings, Gonzales frequently said he could not remember details about key events -- frustrating members of Congress who felt he was trying to minimize his role in what politically motivated dismissals.

The departure leaves Bush with a key cabinet opening nearing the end of his second term. As controversy around Gonzales mounted, so has speculation about possible replacements. Among the names mentioned by lawmakers and their aides in recent weeks: Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff; former deputy attorney general James Comey and former deputy attorney Larry Thompson.

Gonzales came to Washington in 2001 to serve as Bush's first White House counsel, touted as an American success story. The son of migrant workers in San Antonio, he attended the Air Force Academy and studied law at Harvard, joining Bush's Texas gubernatorial staff as general counsel and eventually being appointed to the Texas Supreme Court.

But his nomination as attorney general was clouded from the start. In the White House, he wrote a memo that seemed to condone some forms of torture, a sensitive point as the nation debated the treatment of terror suspects. Only six Democrats voted in favor of his confirmation, an unusually low level of minority support for a cabinet member who serves as the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Gradually, opposition to him spread from the Democrats to include key Republicans.

"I do not find your testimony credible," Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) told him flatly in a July hearing on the surveillance program.

"Under this Attorney General and this President, the Department of Justice suffered a severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system to be corrupted by political influence," Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), said as news of Gonzales' resignation circulated. "I hope the Attorney General's decision will be a step toward getting to the truth about the level of political influence this White House wields over the Department of Justice and toward reconstituting its leadership."

Gonzales' departure follows that of political adviser and strategist Karl Rove and other top White House aides who have left in recent months. White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten recently told senior aides that if they were not planning to stay until the end of Bush's second term, they should leave by Labor Day.

Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/27/AR2007082700372.html?hpid=artslot
 
Not that I would look a gift horse in the mouth, but I get the impression that these resignations are a necessary for the Repulican party to present themselves as reinvented before the 08' campaigns get into full swing.

I could be wrong though.
 
. . . or at least an attempt by G.W. to salvage the rest of his presidency.

QueEx
 
<font size="5"><center>Bush's herd of loyal Texas advisers continues to thin</font size></center>


By Dave Montgomery
McClatchy Newspapers
Monday, August 27, 2007


WASHINGTON — They were fiercely loyal, unfailingly disciplined and, as a unit, offered the president a comforting touchstone from his home state.

Now, Team Texas is moving ever closer to extinction. The already thinning cadre of advisers who followed George W. Bush from Austin to Washington is unraveling even further, with Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove heading toward the door.

Although Texans are still dotted throughout the administration, most of the influential Lone Star transplants who've worked at Bush's side since his days as Texas governor either have left town or removed themselves from day-to-day influence at the White House.

Gonzales, a steadfast loyalist who served as Bush's counsel in the governor's office, announced his resignation as attorney general Monday after enduring a months-long uproar over his stewardship of the Justice Department. Rove, the architect of Bush's victorious presidential campaigns, will leave at the end of the week.

They join a parade of other departed Bush insiders from Texas, including White House adviser Dan Bartlett, former Press Secretary Scott McClellan, former Federal Emergency Management Agency director Joe Allbaugh and White House lawyer Harriet Miers, who Bush briefly nominated to the Supreme Court before a conservative backlash forced him to withdraw the nomination.

Karen Hughes, one of Bush's most trusted advisers in Austin and during the early days at the White House, remains in town but is focused on her current duties as a top State Department official charged with bolstering the U.S. image abroad.

Three other vintage Bushites are still in Washington but, like Hughes, they're largely focused on their own turf: Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, the author of Bush's education initiatives in Austin; Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson, Bush's former neighbor in Dallas; and former Bush college roommate Clay Johnson, who serves as the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The departures are to be expected toward the end of a second term. For the most part, many of Bush's original teammates chose to stay on long past the traditional tenure in a city known for burnout and destroyed families.

"The only surprise is not that any of the Texans have left but that they stayed so long," said Mark McKinnon, a former Bush media consultant who's now the vice chairman of Public Strategies of Austin.

The longevity of many Texas transplants — particularly those who remained at Bush's side deep into his second term — in many ways reflects the mutual loyalty that bonded the former Texas governor and those who joined him at the outset of his political career in the mid-1990s.

Rove, Hughes and Allbaugh, who was Bush's chief of staff in the state capital, formed what was known as the "iron triangle" during the Austin era. Gonzales not only was Bush's legal adviser but also his appointee as Texas secretary of state and a state Supreme Court justice. McClellan, who comes from an Austin political family, was a press aide during Bush's first run for president, in 2000.

"They've been traveling with this guy for a long time," said Texas journalist Bill Minutaglio, who's authored biographies on Bush and Gonzales. "There's a strong personal connection."

To a person, Minutaglio said, pioneer members of the Bush team shared the president's conservative visions, liked and admired him personally and, as Gonzales noted in his resignation statement Monday, credited him with their personal ascents.

In turn, Bush knew that he could count on his fellow Texans to be tight-lipped and loyal, traits that enhanced the administration's reputation as one of the most leak-proof and internally disciplined in years. Bush insisted on loyalty, Minutaglio said, in part because of insiders who he felt had been disloyal to his president father.

After arriving in Washington in January 2001, Bush became even more dependent on a home-state inner circle that long ago had grown familiar with his style and beliefs.

"These were his pals," Minutaglio said. "Bush felt uncomfortable around policy wonks and think tanks. They made him feel very comfortable; they understood him. They got George W. Bush at a Texas level."

But for some of those who followed Bush into the turmoil of his second term, the cost came high. Gonzales, who came to town amid talk of possibly becoming the first Hispanic Supreme Court nominee, instead will leave with a battered reputation. Rove likewise was under scrutiny by Congress on several fronts after earning a reputation as the nation's foremost political craftsman.

The steady parade of Texas departures means that Bush, burdened by low approval ratings because of the Iraq war and other issues, largely will be dependent on an evolving new team as he moves into his final year and a half in office.

McClatchy Newspapers 2007

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/reports/usattorneys/story/19276.html
Monday, August 27, 2007
 
QueEx said:
<font size="5"><center>Bush's herd of loyal Texas advisers continues to thin</font size></center>


By Dave Montgomery
McClatchy Newspapers
Monday, August 27, 2007


WASHINGTON — They were fiercely loyal, unfailingly disciplined and, as a unit, offered the president a comforting touchstone from his home state....................................................................

McClatchy Newspapers 2007

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/reports/usattorneys/story/19276.html
Monday, August 27, 2007


I guess its done all the time but its just something I don't like about the idea of appointing your own lawyer to Attorney General. A confliction in loyalties is a given. And in this case Gonzales consistantly chose the person who put him in office over the people and the constitution he was selected to protect.

I must of talked it up. Bush to nominate High School friend the new Department of Homland of Security Director.

CNN: Bush Plans To Install Inexperienced, Bush Loyalist Clay Johnson At Homeland Security
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/08/27/clay-johnson-dhs/
 
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