Dragged-through-the-mud Fredo — the spec

August 27th, 2007

Oh SHAME on heartless Liberals who have taken Alberto’s fine name and trounced it into the dirt — what a bunch of crap! He did all that quite expertly without any help from us. As regards matters of heart, indeed, I’ve felt badly over Alberto G’s role in history — obviously a “bootstrap” story, Fredo hitched his star to the wagon of the smallest man in presidential history … I guess on the border towns of Texas, you take what you can get. Going from a source of pride for Hispanic citizens to a buffoon and criminal doesn’t serve his roots — OR the American people.

Oh, I know — how can I feel sorry for such a clown; but I even ended up feeling sorry for butt-head John Ashcroft, bullied in his hospital bed. I think that was the factoid that nailed Fredo’s coffin … anybody who can make a pathetic victim out of John Ashcroft deserves contempt. But I’d say, in my defense, that my disappointment is more in the human condition that allowed these men to take the low road, while America expected — deserved — the high. The potential of any human being is the potential of us all … to witness those who fall so short of what they might have been is tragedy for them … and for us.

I just saw a severe Dubby, brow’s down and mouth pursed, talking about the unfairness of all this … poor Fredo, poor Dubby; misunderstood and misused by the Liberal takeover. Ya know, you either “get it” or you don’t; I’m sure there are conservatives out there that do “get it” and make their decisions based on profit margin and opportunity, pushing back any pantywaist notions of morality. I think there are fewer of them than we give them credit for — and I’m supremely confident that Bush isn’t one of them. He believes his own bullshit, of that I’m certain, and perhaps that is his ONLY talent … to remain resolutely defiant of any logic that crosses his belief system. Other than that, he’s shown little intelligence and complete tractability in following the suggestions of minds sharper than his own.

So now we have to worry about what those sharper minds are planning. Back on 8/13 Erin P. Billings wrote for Roll Call:

“Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has quietly shelved plans to hold the Senate in pro forma session this month after the White House agreed to refrain from making any executive appointments during the Senators’ August break.”

But Josh Marshal, over at Talking Points Memo, reports this today:

“Judged by the standards of our history, a recess appointment to replace Alberto Gonzales sounds like an incredible proposition. But don’t be so sure. Just as we saw with the ‘pardon scooter’ movement, the word seems already to have gone out to the folks on the right to start preparing the ground for just such a move by the president. I’ve already heard a few just this morning saying it would be the right thing for the president to do. Watch for it.”

It wouldn’t be Bush’s first broken promise, would it?

Jane Hamsher, at FireDogLake [who, as usual, is doing terrific coverage of this situation, do visit] had this to say:

“Harry Reid has a deal with Bush — no recess appointments. Any abrogation of that deal should be dealt with swiftly and harshly. And for the record, leaving Clement in indefinitely and nominating no one qualifies as de-facto breaking of that deal.”

Solicitor General Paul Clement will be acting AG until a replacement is found and confirmed by the Senate, sez the Dub — so open this link to find out who the Nation’s legal eagle of moment actually is:

Point Man
Paul Clement leads the charge in defending the administration’s tactics in the war on terror
Vanessa Blum, Legal Times | January 16, 2004

Alberto’s impeachment had the best odds — all this leaves us is the Big Dogs and a cowardly Congress; but Rove and Fredo are just “citizens” now, which moves the conversation and, I trust, NOT the accountability. Be sure to read Glenn Greenwald’s piece from Salon — it’s good to get a sense of what the next “stupid human tricks” will look like and be ready for them. Speculation, yes — but informed.

Here’s a collection — blog response first, because it’s the most intelligent, and includes some fun little snips that show a sense of humor the Pubs can only hope for but never quite assume; MSM after that.

Jude

Spencer Ackerman gets quip of the day:

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has a unique take on what’s next to come at the Justice Department in the wake of Alberto Gonzales. Just now on CNN:

This will not bring peace. This will bring more chaos.

No word yet on whether the chaos created by Alberto Gonzales will follow us home.

Gonzo’s Gone
Now, Get Cheney
DAVE LINDORFF, CounterPunch
August 27 2007

Let’s be clear. Alberto Gonzales is resigning as attorney general not because he’s become an embarrassment to the Bush administration-which has repeatedly shown itself to be beyond embarrassment-but because he is no longer useful. Exposed as a serial liar and an administration hack, he can no longer be relied upon by the Bush administration to carry forward its criminal agenda of subverting the Constitution, the electoral process and the Bill of Rights, because his every step is being watched by the public and the Congress.

But this is no victory unless the Congress follows up by pursuing those who put Gonzales up to his crimes.

The whole reason felons and hacks like Gonzales resign from office is to bury their misdeeds by leaving town.

If Congress then obliges by moving on to other things, the resignation will have succeeded.

Next, it looks like we will have Michael Chertoff as AG. Now on one level that might seem to be an improvement. Gonzales was a both a house servant to Bush through his years as governor and president, doing whatever was necessary to tidy up after Bush’s messes, like hiding evidence of his drunk driving record and his dereliction of duty during the Vietnam War, and a kind of mob attorney, developing legal loopholes to protect the president from prosecution (or impeachment) for various crimes as president, like violating the Geneva Conventions or unleashing the nation’s spy apparatus against Americans. Chertoff, who is not a part of the Texas Mafia, may not be so ready to cross the line into rank sycophancy and to play the role of co-conspirator, particularly given that it’s only for another 16 months.

Then again, Chertoff, in his short stint at what is still referred to as the “Justice” Department, headed up the anti-terrorism unit under Gonzales’ predecessor, John Ashcroft, and willingly played along with the sham prosecution of John Walker Lindh, the kid who was captured in Afghanistan and inflated by Ashcroft and Chertoff into “the American Taliban.” It was Chertoff who successfully deep-sixed evidence of Lindh’s weeks of torture at the hands of American forces, by threatening Lindh with a treason prosecution, while holding out the offer of a deal-”just” 15 years in the can if he agreed to sign a fraudulent statement saying he had “never been mistreated” in US captivity, and to accept a gag order barring him from talking about what had happened to him for the entire length of his sentence-an unprecedented gag order.

That prosecution and silencing of Lindh, which prevented the public from exploring the deliberate campaign of torture that had been developed in Afghanistan, later to “migrate” to Guantanamo and thence to Abu Ghraib and Iraq, was in its way as damaging to the nation as was Chertoff’s other signal disaster-his inept and callous mishandling of the catastrophe of the Katrina flooding of New Orleans.

If Chertoff-a demonstrable failure both as an administrator and as a defender of justice-is the best this administration can come up with as a replacement for Gonzales, we should be worried about the future of the nation’s “justice” system. (Okay, I concede that the Justice Department has as much to do with justice as the Defense Department has to do with defense or the Education Department has to do with education.)

The one good thing that can be said about the Gonzales resignation is that it eliminates the Democratic leadership’s latest gambit for attempting to derail the impeachment movement. As support for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney has grown, both among the public at large and in Congress, where there are now at least 20 co-sponsors for Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s Cheney impeachment bill, the Democratic leadership in the House scrambled to get behind a purely inside-the-beltway “campaign” to impeach Gonzales-a move that did succeed in dividing the real, authentic impeachment movement.

The interesting thing is that in backing the impeachment of Gonzales, those leaders and senior House Democrats who have been brushing off the broader impeachment movement gave the lie to two of their main arguments against impeachment-that it would be “too divisive” and that there “isn’t time” for impeachment. Clearly if it wasn’t too late to impeach Gonzales, and if impeaching Gonzales would not be too divisive, neither is it too late to impeach Cheney and neither would impeaching Cheney be “too divisive.”

So let’s hail the departure of Gonzo, let’s demand a thorough vetting of the demonstrably incompetent and unprincipled Chertoff, and most importantly, let’s move forward with the campaign to impeach Cheney, starting with a full-court campaign to get all those who so readily signed on to Washington Rep. Jay Inslee’s Gonzales impeachment bill to now sign on to Rep. Kucinich’s H.Res. 333, a resolution to impeach the vice president.

The Democrats’ Responsibility In The Wake of Gonzales’ Resignation
Glenn Greenwald, Salon via CommonDreams
Monday, August 27, 2007

One of the most blatantly dishonest political hacks ever to occupy the position of U.S. Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, has now resigned. This is a real moment of truth for the Democratic Congress. Democrats, who have offered up little other than one failure after the next since taking power in January, can take a big step toward redeeming themselves here. No matter what, they must ensure that Gonzales’ replacement is a genuinely trustworthy and independent figure.

That means that Democrats must not confirm anyone, such as Michael Chertoff, who has been ensconced in the Bush circle. Instead, the DOJ and the country desperately need a completely outside figure who will ensure that the prosecutorial machinery operates independently, even if — especially if — that means finally investigating the litany of Executive branch abuses and lawbreaking which have gone almost entirely uninvestigated, as well uncovering those which remain concealed.

The standard excuse invoked by Democrats to justify their capitulations — namely, that they cannot attract a filibuster-proof or veto-proof majority to defy the President — will be unavailing here. They themselves can filibuster the confirmation of any proposed nominee to replace Gonzales. They do not need Blue Dogs or Bush Dogs or any of the other hideous cowards in their caucus who remain loyal to the most unpopular President in modern American history. The allegedly “Good Democrats” can accomplish this vital step all on their own. They only need 40 Senate votes to achieve it.

It is difficult to overstate how vital this is. The unexpected resignation of Gonzales provides a truly critical opportunity to restore real oversight to our government, to provide advocates of the rule of law with a quite potent weapon to compel adherence to the law and, more importantly, to expose and bring accountability for prior lawbreaking. All of the investigations and scandals, currently stalled hopelessly, can be dramatically and rapidly advanced with an independent Attorney General at the helm of the DOJ.

That is not going to happen if the Democrats allow the confirmation of one of the ostensibly less corrupt and “establishment-respected” members of the Bush circle — Michael Chertoff or Fred Fielding or Paul Clement or some Bush appointee along those lines. The new Attorney General must be someone who is not part of that rotted circle at all — even if they are supposedly part of the less rotted branches — since it is that circle which ought to be the subject of multiple DOJ investigations.

As Democrats supposedly just learned (yet again), even the Bush appointees whom they claim (foolishly) to believe they can trust to act independently, such as DNI Mike McConnell, have their ultimate allegiance to George Bush and Dick Cheney. The President is certainly entitled to choose someone who is generally compatible with him ideologically, but the only acceptable replacement for Alberto Gonzales is someone who is truly independent of the Bush machine and whom Democrats are supremely confident will act independently, which means pursuing criminal investigations where warranted of the highest levels of this administration, including the departing Attorney General himself.

Congressional Democrats, insulting the intelligence of their own supporters, have repeatedly claimed to have trusted the Bush administration and its appointees only to be “betrayed” time and again — they were “betrayed” by allowing the confirmation of Alito and Roberts to the Supreme Court based on false assurances that they would respect precedent; they were “betrayed” again by the agreement on the Military Commissions Act between the White House and Graham/Warner/McCain only to then have the agreement modified severely by last-minute changes; they were “betrayed” again by trusting Mike McConnell on the FISA deal; and they even claim to have been “betrayed” by supporting the confirmation of Gonzales himself based upon assurances at his confirmation hearing that he understood and would honor his independent role as Attorney General.

That excuse is not going to work again. Relying on assurances from some current Bush appointee that they will act independently is woefully and self-evidently insufficient. Only a truly outside figure, one who is entirely independent of the Bush circle, should be acceptable.

Pressuring Senate Democrats right away on this is vital. There is no more important domestic political goal then ensuring that the DOJ investigative and prosecutorial machinery operates independently. Senate Democrats will have none of their usual excuses if they fail to compel the nomination of someone truly independent and/or if they sit by meekly and allow the appointment of someone whose independence is even questionable.

Whatever it takes — repeated blocking of nominees, filibustering, protracted hearings — it is critical that it be done in order to restore integrity to the DOJ. A less-than-independent replacement as Attorney General will be entirely the fault of Democrats if they allow it to happen. Conversely, by ensuring the confirmation of someone independent, Senate Democrats can take a major step in revitalizing the rule of law, revitalizing their political base, showing the country they stand for something, and making the case that the 2006 midterm election change of control actually meant something.

UPDATE: Commenters have suggested that Bush could bypass the confirmation process with a recess appointment, but Bush and Harry Reid have an agreement in place that there will be no recess appointments during Congress’ adjournment:

There’ll be no recess appointments this time around, Roll Call reports (sub. req.), meaning the White House won’t be taking advantage of Congress’ vacation to install any contested nominees. That’s due to a deal between Bush and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV). . . . Last recess, the White House made a number of controversial recess appointments, including Swift Boat backer Sam Fox as ambassador to Belgium. In order to prevent that sort of thing from happening again, Reid had plotted to keep the Senate in “pro forma” session during the recess — whereby the Senate floor personnel show up every three days to make it an official session. But now Reid and Bush have made a deal, according to Roll Call. Bush won’t make any recess appointments and Reid has promised to move some of his nominees when Senate gets back in session.

Obviously, there is nothing truly binding about the agreement, and Bush could violate it. But in the Beltway world, that is a Draconian step that seems unlikely (though not impossible) for many reasons. Far more likely, it seems, is Bush’s (reasonable) belief that Senate Democrats will be as accommodating as usual and confirm a replacement who is acceptable to the administration.

Gonzales Goes But Investigation Must Continue
John Nichols, The Nation via CommonDreams
Monday, August 27, 2007

Facing the prospect of increasingly aggressive congressional inquiries into his politicization of the Department of Justice, as well as an energetic House push for his impeachment, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has announced that he will resign effective September 17.

Gonzales, the former White House counsel who made clear during his two-and-a-half-year tenure as the nation’s top cop that he served President Bush rather than the Constitution, is announcing his exit strategy just days before the Congress returns from a summer break during which senators and representatives had gotten an earful about the need to get rid of Gonzales.

A proposal by Washington Democrat Jay Inslee, a respected former prosecutor, to have the House Judiciary Committee investigate whether Gonzales should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, attracted 27 cosponsors during the current recess and would have drawn many more with the return of the House in early September.

The Attorney General was ripe for impeachment because of a rapidly broadening recognition that he had displayed a blatant disregard for the law since his arrival in Washington in 2001 at the side of his longtime friend and political benefactor George Bush.

Gonzales, whose signature line was a declaration that he served “at the pleasure of the president,” made it his business as White House counsel and attorney general to do just that.

As counsel from 2001 to 2005, Gonzales blocked requests from the General Accounting Office for information about Enron officials meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force. He refused requests from congressional committees for information that the House and Senate had a right — and a need. He made the legal case for torture, despite the fact that the Constitution bars cruel and unusual punishment. He outlined schemes for subverting the judicial system and its rules by making terror suspects eligible for military tribunals. He helped convince Bush to refuse to afford prisoners held at Guantanamo the basic protections afforded prisoner-of-war under treaties the United States had accepted as the law of the land.

As the nation’s 80th Attorney General — a position he took in February, 2005, after the Senate vote 60-36 to confirm his nomination — Gonzales extended his representation of Bush into should be an independent federal agency. He defended the president’s authorization of an illegal warrantless wiretapping program. He accepted the “extraordinary rendition” of suspects from U.S. custody to that of torture regimes. And he turned the Department of Justice into an extension of Karl Rove’s White House political shop.

Revelations about the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys who were seen by the administration as insufficiently political in their investigations and prosecutions opened up an investigation that has begun to confirm a broad scheme to politicize the Justice Department’s work in the area of voting rights — a scheme apparently designed by Rove to suppress turnout by minorities and others who might vote Democratic.

The investigation into those machinations has hit the administration hard — so hard that the president is now jettisoning his oldest and closest aides in order to prevent the inquiry from evolving into a serious examination of his own lawlessness.

Today’s exit announcement by Gonzales comes just days after Rove signaled his plan to go.

The important thing now is to make sure that the administration does not succeed in using high-profile departures to shut down — or, at the very least, to diminish the seriousness and the extent of — those inquiries.

When Rove announced the he was leaving, Senate Judiciary Committee chair Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, made it clear that the political aide remained a target of broad inquiries by the judiciary committees of the House and Senate.

“Mr. Rove acted as if he was above the law. That is wrong, Leahy said at the time. “Now that he is leaving the White House while under subpoena, I continue to ask what Mr. Rove and others at the White House are so desperate to hide. Mr. Rove’s apparent attempts to manipulate elections and push out prosecutors citing bogus claims of voter fraud shows corruption of federal law enforcement for partisan political purposes, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue its investigation into this serious issue.”

Referencing the growing sense that the inquiry into wrongdoing in and around the Justice Department could yet be the undoing of the Bush-Cheney administration, Leahy added, “The list of senior White House and Justice Department officials who have resigned during the course of these congressional investigations continues to grow, and today, Mr. Rove added his name to that list. There is a cloud over this White House, and a gathering storm. A similar cloud envelopes Mr. Rove, even as he leaves the White House.”

The “list” referenced by Leahy gets longer with the news that Gonzales is going.

But the essential question with regard to Gonzales remains the same as the question that Leahy laid down when Rove said he would go: What are these people so desperate to hide?

The answer is that, just as Gonzales and Rove served Bush rather than the Constitution, they now seek with their resignations to protect Bush — and Vice President Cheney — from investigations that are necessary to any serious effort to restore the primacy of the founding document in the affairs of the nation.

Only a continued inquiry into the lawlessness of the soon-to-be-former Attorney General will achieve what is the essential purpose of this Congress: the restoring of the rule of law to a country deeply damaged by petty little men who chose personal loyalties and political expediency over their duty to the Republic.

Gonzales Resigns! Good Riddance!
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is finally stepping down. Will Michael Chertoff replace him?
Steve Benen, Alternet
August 27, 2007.

In March, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said, “I’m not going to resign. I’m going to stay focused on protecting our kids.” In June, he said promised to “sprint to the finish line” to “accomplish all the goals that are important to me.”

And now, Gonzales is walking away from the job he never should have been given in the first place.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by controversy and accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington.

Mr. Gonzales, who had rebuffed calls for his resignation, submitted his to President Bush by telephone on Friday, the official said. His decision was not immediately announced, the official added, until after the president invited him and his wife to lunch at his ranch near here.

Mr. Bush has not yet chosen a replacement but will not leave the position open long, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Attorney General’s resignation had not yet been made public.

U.S. News’ Paul Bedard often does a good job keeping his ear to the ground, but his latest rumor is an odd one.

The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he’s got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.

For what it’s worth, Bob Novak reported a month ago that “there are a number of cabinet members who would like to leave,” but by all indications, Gonzales isn’t one of them. Indeed, the AG’s departure would likely be perceived as a defeat for the White House, which is perhaps the principal reason Gonzales is still the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer. (Am I suggesting the president would keep an incompetent and dishonest Attorney General on the job out of spite? Yes.)

What’s more, when Gonzales’ troubles really started hitting the fan in March, Mike Allen was the first to report Chertoff was on a short-list of possible replacements, so I suppose there’s some precedent to Bedard’s rumor.

Color me skeptical. I don’t doubt that if Bush were willing to replace Gonzales, he’d probably pick someone who stood a good chance of being confirmed, but I think it’s probably an overstatement to suggest Chertoff is popular among lawmakers. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has already called on Chertoff to resign.

And while it’s certainly true that Chertoff is untainted by Gonzales’ multiple DoJ scandals, he is tainted by his own DHS scandals, including the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, his “gut feeling” fiasco, and some controversial staffing decisions.

Regardless, that’s the rumor. Take it with a grain of salt.

“Going Back to Texas to Be One More Horse’s A**”
Peter Smith, HuffPo
August 27, 2007

“So paste a tail upon my nose and point me toward the grass.
I’m going back to Texas to be one more horse’s ass.”

~ Shel Siverstein

When an army withdraws from a battlefield, it doesn’t just turn and run. It slips away one or two units at a time, leaving other units in place to cover the exit. It’s called strategic withdrawal.

Like Rove’s, Gonzales’ departure from Washington should be seen as part of the greater Bush administration strategic withdrawal from Washington. He is, in Shel Siverstein’s words, “Going back to Texas to be one more horse’s ass.”

Better a strategic withdrawal now than a wholesale retreat in January of 2009. A trickle of departures, followed by presidential pardons on the way out of town, will be smoother and more historically graceful somehow.

(For pure symmetry, it would be fun to see the Bushies conclude the whole sorry show with one last James Baker and Theodore Olson appearance in front of the Supreme Court. Then Baker could leave D.C. for Texas aboard the Enron plane the Bush’s lawyers took from Texas to Florida in November of 2000.)

In true George W. Bush fashion, this strategic withdrawal leaves the rest of the Republican Party — and the rest of the nation — holding the bag. With the country in a shambles, with our civil rights shredded, with Iraq eternally SNAFU’ed, and players like Rove, Gonzales, and who-knows-who-else safely back in Texas, the Bush administration can take the theme for the rest of its term from National Lampoon’s Animal House:

“You F’ed up. You trusted us.”

So, bye-bye Karl. So long Alberto. Take care of Texas until Cheney and Bush get there. And don’t worry. They’ve got your withdrawal covered.

Gonzales Resigns, Vows to Find the Real Perjurers
RJ Eskow, HuffPo
August 27, 2007

A grim-faced Alberto Gonzales announced today that he was resigning in order to dedicate the rest of his life to “finding the real perjurers.” “They deceived Congress and the American people,” he said, “and I won’t rest until they’re brought to justice.” He added that he also intends to find out who used the chief law enforcement office in the land to subvert the Constitution.

The outgoing Attorney General also noted that someone in a senior Administration authorized the use of torture, which he observed was not only “barbaric” but also violated international law. “That discovery caused me great pain,” Mr. Gonzales said. “I mean, it wasn’t the kind of pain that simulates organ failure or death, but it still kinda smarted.”

Mr. Gonzales scoffed at rumors that he’s writing a book called If I Did It. “Believe me,” the Attorney General said. “If anybody was writing something like that, I’d have gotten a report from Gen. Hayden about it.”

Gonzales to Spend More Time Eavesdropping on His Family
Andy Borowitz, HuffPo
August 27, 2007

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned today, effective immediately, telling reporters that he wanted to spend more time eavesdropping on his family.

Mr. Gonzales, a champion of domestic surveillance and warrantless wiretaps while in office, said he was “totally stoked” about turning his prying eyes on his own family.

“Domestic surveillance begins at home,” Mr. Gonzales said at a White House press conference. “That means nobody in my family is above suspicion, not even the little ones,” an apparent reference to Mr. Gonzales’ children.

Standing by Mr. Gonzales’ side, President George W. Bush praised his former Attorney General, singling out his “courage” for ramping up his domestic spying program on his own family.

“If every head of every household was as willing to eavesdrop on his own family as my man Alberto is, we wouldn’t need a Homeland Security Department,” Mr. Bush chuckled.

Mr. Gonzales was noncommittal when a reporter asked him a question about the role that waterboarding and other forms of torture might play in his interrogation of family members.

“Nothing is off the table,” he said.

Asked about his tenure as Attorney General, Mr. Gonzales was candid about his stormy time in office: “Frankly, I can’t believe it took this long for them to shitcan me.”

Bush: Gonzales’ ‘good name dragged through the mud’
CNN

Story Highlights

Bush defends Gonzales, reluctantly accepting his resignation
“Unfair treatment” created harmful distraction, says Bush
Source downplays report that Homeland chief Chertoff likely successor
Gonzales: “My worst days … have been better than my father’s best days”

WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Bush on Monday said he reluctantly accepted the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose “good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.”

Alberto Gonzales was dogged by controversial issues including wiretapping programs and fired U.S. attorneys.

After months of standing by his top prosecutor and “close friend,” Bush spoke briefly in Texas to praise Gonzales, saying the attorney general endured “unfair treatment that has created harmful distraction at the Justice Department.”

Bush said it’s “sad that we live in a time when a talented and honorable person” is impeded “from doing important work.”

Solicitor General Paul Clement will serve as acting attorney general, Bush said, until a nominee has been confirmed by the Senate.

Earlier in Washington, Gonzales announced his resignation, saying, “I have lived the American dream.” The first Latino to helm the Justice Department said his “worst days as attorney general have been better than my father’s best days.”

Gonzales described public service as “honorable and noble” and thanked Bush for his friendship.

“Yesterday I met with President Bush and informed him of my decision to conclude my government services as Attorney General of the United States effective September 17.”

Neither Bush nor Gonzales took questions from reporters.

Initially, senior administration officials floated the name of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff as a likely successor to Gonzales, however, a source close to Chertoff said, “this would be a surprise to Mike.”

Gonzales aides at the highest level and other top-level officials knew nothing about the announcement in advance, Justice Department sources told CNN.

They were not informed until a meeting Monday morning, sources said, when Gonzales acknowledged he would be reading a statement later in the day.

One of Gonzales’ chief Democratic critics, New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, appealed to the administration “to work with us to nominate someone whom Democrats can support and America can be proud of.”

Although Bush had long stood by Gonzales, many members of Congress from both sides of the aisle had called on him to quit after the firing of several U.S. attorneys in 2006.

Schumer and several congressional Democrats have asked for a special counsel to investigate Gonzales’ involvement in what has been accused of being politically motivated firings of several U.S. attorneys and a controversial government no-warrant wiretapping program.

Senior Justice Department officials say Gonzales’ resignation is not expected to affect the scope or pace of an ongoing internal investigation into the firing of the U.S. attorneys and other issues.

“Alberto Gonzales was never the right man for this job,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Monday. “He lacked independence, he lacked judgment and he lacked the spine to say no to Karl Rove.” Rove, another longtime Bush official and his top political adviser, also resigned this month.

“This resignation is not the end of the story,” Reid warned. “Congress must get to the bottom of this mess and follow the facts where they lead, into the White House.”

In a statement, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont said Gonzales was responsible for a “severe crisis of leadership that allowed our justice system to be corrupted by political influence.”

Leahy called the experience “a lesson to those in the future who hold these high offices, so that law enforcement is never subverted in this way again.”

Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards said the attorney general’s move was “better late than never.”

Schumer hailed Gonzales’ resignation.

“I think that clearly this was the right thing to do,” the New York Democrat told CNN. “It took a long time, but there is no question about it that the Justice Department is virtually nonfunctional.”

Schumer added that, “no one thought Alberto Gonzales was up to the job” saying that “we need someone who will put rule of law first.”

But Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky expressed “hope that whomever President Bush selects as the next attorney general, he or she is not subjected to the same poisonous partisanship that we’ve sadly grown accustomed to over the past eight months.”

Describing Gonzales’ resignation as a reaction to “basically unproven charges,” GOP Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas called it “a sad day and sad commentary on the hyperpartisan atmosphere in Washington.”

Moderate Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine called it “a positive step forward.”

After Rove’s resignation, senior administration officials said White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten had told senior aides that if they intended to stay after Labor Day, they should plan to remain for the rest of Bush’s term through January 2009.

Throughout Gonzales’ time as attorney general, controversies surrounded his positions on issues such as U.S. interrogation techniques and the wiretapping of conversations between Americans and suspected terrorists overseas.

This year, after Congress began an investigation into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, Gonzales faced a great deal of scrutiny — and the calls for his dismissal began.

The Senate Judiciary Committee looked into whether the administration may have fired some or all of them for political reasons. In his testimony before the committee on multiple occasions, Gonzales repeatedly seemed to contradict himself, other members of his department or Justice Department documents.

The attorney general also testified that he could not answer dozens of questions because he could not “recall” certain incidents or meetings.

Gonzales was also at the center of a dispute over the controversial no-warrant eavesdropping program authorized by Bush and his testimony that there was no dissent among administration officials over the program. Gonzales later sent a letter to Senate leaders acknowledging he “may have created confusion” in his testimony.

Gonzales said the dissent erupted over “other intelligence activities” and he would not discuss what he meant by “other.”

Gonzales appeared to contradict Senate testimony by FBI Director Robert Mueller that a confrontation between Gonzales and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in Ashcroft’s hospital room in 2004 was indeed about the controversial surveillance program.

“So keep fightin’ for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don’t you forget to have fun doin’ it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce. And when you get through kickin’ ass and celebratin’ the sheer joy of a good fight, be sure to tell those who come after how much fun it was.”
~ Molly Ivins, 1944 - 2007

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