Alberto Gonzales: Perfectly Competent

In the wake of Alberto Gonzales's resignation, John Dickerson of Slate wrote a column examining why President Bush holds onto his incompetent employees for so long. His answer? Loyalty, and stubbornness. Quoting from the article,

As Alberto Gonzales resigns today, he joins Donald Rumsfeld, Harriet Miers, and Michael Brown—animated failures who could not be controlled or improved with good public relations. The pattern has been consistent: The president resists and resists calls for a change. Then he gives in. In Gonzales' case, it's almost as if Bush were perfecting this failed approach, wringing out of his embattled old friend so many embarrassing gaffes that he couldn't be hurt anymore. Then he let him go.

But his column would have made much more sense after the firing of Michael Brown, a man who truly seemed incompetent, even in President Bush's eyes.

Alberto Gonzales, on the other hand, was not at all incompetent at the job he was assigned by the President. He was, of course, highly incompetent at the typical job of Attorney General, in which he is was supposed to serve the People and the Constitution. But that wasn't the job that Mr. Bush wanted him to do. Mr. Bush wanted Mr. Gonzales to fire US Attorneys who were prosecuting Republicans or who were refusing to file bogus charges against Democrats. Mr. Bush also wanted Mr. Gonzales to appear to be forthcoming with Congress while at the same time steadfastly avoiding giving any impression that the directives to politicize the DOJ originated in the Whitehouse, in Karl Rove's and/or Dick Cheney's offices. This was, of course, an impossible task (it required lots of "I don't recall"s and a bit of lying), but Gonzales tackled this job that the President had assigned him masterfully. The Democrats in Congress were hoping finally to be able to pin the politicization of Justice — probably obstruction of justice — on the Whitehouse, and Gonzales entirely stymied them. Almost any other man would have rolled on his bosses, in order to preserve a shred of his own reputation. Not Alberto Gonzales: he allowed himself to be the scapegoat for all that is wrong with the Administration's handling of Justice, and in so doing whitewashed the Whitehouse.

Look at it another way: If Alberto Gonzales is incompetent, exactly what is he incompetent at? Of course, his testimony before the Congress seemed ridiculously mendacious, but it was his job to tell lies. Is the charge that he was incompetent in Bush's eyes because he told the wrong lies, or he did not lie skillfully enough? Watch this video clip. Is that a man who has no idea what he's doing? Instead, I see a man who is, quite competently, laying down in front of a doberman, because that's what his boss expects him to do.

The whole point is, Dickerson implies that Bush sees all these hacks who are doing lousy work by his standards and yet he holds onto them out of loyalty. With Michael Brown, that point seems valid. With Gonzales, it is not. Gonzales may have been a lousy attorney general by your standards and mine (he certainly was by mine), but he successfully politicized the DOJ while at the same time hiding any Whitehouse involvement. In other words, he did exactly what Bush wanted him to do.

Heckuva job, Gonzo!