PNJ: 'Gonzalez Has To Go'

The flagship daily newspaper for right-wing, reactionary, Bush-beatifying Northwest Florida calls today for the firing of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez -- if he doesn't resign first.

It is rare for presidents to fire their own U.S. attorney appointees. But to fire them for being insufficiently attentive to the president's political agenda before an election is beyond the pale.
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If Gonzales had distinguished himself as attorney general, he might have some credibility. But he came to "prominence" as the presidential advisor who provided justifications for the use of torture. As attorney general, he appears to see his job as telling the president whatever he wants to hear -- including that he is not bound by U.S. law or the Constitution.

It's too late for Gonzales to show the allegiance to the Constitution an attorney general owes the American people.

Predictably, the ever-shrinking crowd of Bush believers already is hitting the newspaper's comment section to share their ignorance. "Bill Clinton fired all of his US Attorneys when he was president," writes one moron. "What's the big deal?"

Someone should tell that guy to get a clue. While it is tradition for all U.S. attorneys to resign when a new president takes office, and most of those resignations are accepted, the "big deal" is that incumbent presidents don't fire their own appointees wholesale; nor do they do it to cover-up criminal activity by politicians and lobbyists of the president' s own party -- at least, they didn't until Nixon, and now George W. Bush.

Also, it's not a good idea for the nation's Chief Law Enforcer and his top aides to lie to Congress.