Another "heckuva job'' job

Here's what the president said recently about beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: "He has done nothing wrong.'' What's amazing about that sentence is you can lop off the last word and still have the sentence be absolutely true. The attorney general can fire U.S. attorneys willy-nilly for any and no reason. That's the deal that many of us "at will'' employees face. But Gonzales, judging from his appearances on Capitol Hill, didn't have the foggiest notion who he was firing or why. That's what minions are for apparently. Unless you happen to be Paul Wolfowitz, and then you sleep with minions and get them a raise.

George Bush's loyalty is an admirable quality, right up until the point those you are loyal to screw up big time. Remember the head of FEMA, who when it came to Katrina didn't know a levee from a crawfish? When Gonzales wasn't doing anything, it turns out he was going to the intensive care unit, not to visit a sick friend, but to get John Ashcroft to sign off on warrantless eavesdropping. This puts Gonzales in the running with other Republican hospital visits of note, particularly Newt Gingrich, who asked his wife for a divorce when she was in the hospital being treated for cancer. Gonzales may be a nice guy, a swell friend, who technically did nothing wrong, but he did it in a spectacularly boneheaded fashion and needs to go.