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 Editorials | Issues | August 2007 
Another Bush Confidant Quits
 Reinout van Wagtendonk - Radio Netherlands
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 |  | It is sad that we live in a time when a talented and a honourable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work, because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons.
- George Bush |  | |
The departure of Alberto Gonzales as US Attorney General means President Bush has not only lost one of his most loyal confidants but also the highest ranking Latino in his administration. Supporters of Gonzales, angered by his resignation under duress, have started to bring his Mexican origins into the discussion.
Gonzales was born the son of a poor Texas family. He suspects that his grandparents were illegal immigrants from Mexico. In his brief farewell speech yesterday, he referred to his humble beginnings and the difficulty his father had making ends meet for a family with eight children.
"I often remind our fellow citizens that we live in the greatest country in the world and that I have lived the American Dream. Even my worst days as an Attorney General have been better than my father's best days."
Tight-lipped
Gonzales remained tight-lipped about the reason for his departure. But it was what he did not say in his terse statement that revealed most about how aggrieved he feels. His political ally from Texas, Republican senator John Cornyn, was more forthright. Speaking on CNN, Senator Cornyn said it was a sad day for America that this member of the Latino community was pressured into giving up his ministerial position.
"A good man and somebody who's the highest level Hispanic who has ever served in government resigned for basically unproven charges."
Bush saddened
President Bush himself gladly referred to the inspiring life story of his friend from Texas. He also complained that Gonzales was treated unfairly and was shot down for political ends.
"It is sad that we live in a time when a talented and a honourable person like Alberto Gonzales is impeded from doing important work, because his good name was dragged through the mud for political reasons."
The Republicans and the Democrats are doing battle for the Latino vote, which is becoming ever more important in the US. While the Hispanic community by no means represents a homogenous section of the population, in general the fierce anti-immigration mood within the Republican party has put off many Latinos and driven them into the arms of the Democrats.
Trying to turn the tide
The supporters of Alberto Gonzales are trying to turn the tide to some extent by making him a symbol of prejudice against Latinos in the Democratic camp. But this version of events is undermined by the fate of David Iglesias, one of the nine federal attorneys fired in the wave of dismissals that sparked the demands for Gonzales' resignation in the first place. Mr Iglesias says he was fired because he refused to carry out certain orders from Washington, orders which he says were dubious to say the least.
"It's at minimum inappropriate and it could very well be illegal."
"A sinking ship"
Iglesias is every bit as Latino as Gonzales and was just as fervent a Bush supporter. He says he and his fellow attorneys were dismissed because, in the eyes of the White House and Attorney General Gonzales, they were not doing their best to catch Democratic candidates on charges of electoral fraud.
The Democrats argue it was Gonzales, with the backing of President Bush's top advisor Karl Rove, who destroyed the Justice Department by turning it into a political extension of the right-wing ideological agenda of the Republican party ahead of their election defeat one year ago. Democrat senator Chuck Schumer sums up their position:
"Under Alberto Gonzales the Department of Justice was a sinking ship."
Gonzales was facing official accusations of perjury for lying under oath during Senate hearings about the reasons for the controversial dismissal of his attorneys. Even a number of Republican senators had abandoned their trust in him. His position had become politically untenable, something that had nothing at all to do with his ethnic background.
RNW translation (dd) |
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