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Position: Alberto Gonzales should resign
This position addresses the topic 2006 Dismissal of U.S. Attorneys controversy.
For this position
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"He went to some of the best schools in America, including Harvard Law. Yet, somewhere along the line, he drank the loyalty Kool-Aid. Watching him testify before the Senate and House was painful for me. He had been a trailblazer for the Latino community, and then, in the space of a few hours of tortured testimony, he became just another morally rudderless political operative."
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"His claim not to have been involved in the firings suggests that he was either deceptive or inexcusably detached from the operations of his own department. His deputy, Paul McNulty, insulted the fired prosecutors by claiming that they had been asked to resign for “performance-related issues.” But many of them received good reviews, and none of them said he was told about any disappointment with his performance."
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"But in time, and the sooner the better, Gonzales must resign. It's not a question of probity but of competence. Gonzales has allowed a scandal to be created where there was none. That is quite an achievement. He had a two-foot putt and he muffed it."
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"Bush has defended the firings as "appropriate" -- a shameful admission that Bush himself believes in partisan justice. He should admit his own complicity, and replace Gonzales with a respected attorney who can restore some integrity to the badly tarnished Justice Department."
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"Now, Mr. Gonzales has distinguished himself again by what the Department of Justice did under his direction in undermining the office and the functions of U.S. attorneys. It fired eight of them, some apparently for political reasons or to enable the advancement of a protege of White House counselor and Republican strategist Karl Rove. Mr. Gonzales also misled Congress on the subject."
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"In his appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, it was sometimes hard to recall that Alberto Gonzales is the attorney general of the United States. More often, he sounded like an outside consultant, with no operational authority at the Justice Department and only a limited knowledge of what was going on in the offices around his. The difference is that when outside consultants are no longer of any use, they move on."
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"Gonzales acknowledged only that he “misspoke” at a March 13 press conference in which he said he had not attended meetings or had discussions about the firings. In fact, Justice Department documents show, the attorney general attended an hour-long meeting on Nov. 27 of last year during which he approved an elaborate plan to oust the prosecutors."
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"But the mea culpas at this late date won't cut it. Accepting blame and promising to do better doesn't repair the damage to morale, image and public stature that Gonzales & Co. have brought on the Department of Justice. He continues to stand by the dismissals, nearly all of them imbued with a heavy dose of Republican politics."
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Against this position
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"Unless there are more clear facts of interference with prosecutors for partisan purposes, Mr. Gonzales should keep his job. His dismissal wouldn't placate the critics anyway, and probably only whet their appetite for more. &91;...&93; All presidents, regardless of party, need an attorney general and U.S. attorneys who share, rather than ignore, their constitutional, legal and law-enforcement priorities. The Constitution requires no less."
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"Gonzales certainly should not allow himself to be run out of Washington by newspaper editorial boards, columnists or network pundits who have assured us, early and often, that his goose is cooked. In fact, these opinion-shapers have been so emphatic in making this point that they haven't gotten around to explaining just why this is the case. They seem more interested in advancing their view than in learning what really happened."
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"President Bush, like Republican and Democratic presidents before him have done, can hire, fire or rehire when he chooses. This includes firing attorneys who fail to fit within the president's policy agenda. If he decides to hire prosecutors who vigorously pursue voting fraud, and fire others whom he believes spend too much time on civil-rights litigation, that's his prerogative. His judgment can be properly assessed at a subsequent election."
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"I know that I did not -- and would not -- ask for the resignation of any U.S. attorney for an improper reason. Furthermore, I have no basis to believe that anyone involved in this process sought the removal of a U.S. attorney for an improper reason."
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Mixed on this position
No results