At the lowest moment in the highest law enforcement office, with criticism pouring in from all sides, including from the president who appointed him, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made a rare reference last week to his difficult past, speaking defiantly of his determination to weather the controversy over the firing of eight federal prosecutors.“Let me just say one thing,” Gonzales said. “I’ve overcome a lot of obstacles in my life to become attorney general. I am here not because I give up. I am here because I’ve learned from my mistakes, because I accept responsibility, and because I’m committed to doing my job.”
Gonzales has rarely spoken of the turmoil that has shadowed his family, emphasizing instead an inspirational biography that takes him from a boyhood in a cramped house that lacked hot water all the way to the elbow of a president.
The story is indeed impressive. Gonzales’ parents, Pablo and Maria, met as migrant farmworkers in Texas and settled in Humble, a town north of Houston. Pablo Gonzales worked in construction and later as a maintenance man. He was a hard drinker but a good provider, the story goes, who, with two brothers, built a twobedroom house in which he raised Alberto and seven other children.
The reality, however, as reflected in public records and interviews, is grittier and more tragic. Gonzales’ family members have repeatedly stumbled, creating a bleak counterpoint to his dazzling rise to become the nation’s first Hispanic attorney general.
Gonzales’ father was arrested for drunken driving five times in 17 years, covering much of Gonzales’ childhood and adolescence. Pablo Gonzales died in an industrial accident in 1982 when Gonzales was at Harvard Law School.
A younger brother, Rene Gonzales, died under mysterious circumstances in 1980. In 1991, the same year Alberto Gonzales became one of the first Hispanic partners at the white shoe Houston law firm of Vinson & Elkins, his younger sister Theresa pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to deliver. Nine years later, while Gonzales was on the Texas Supreme Court, his mother and another brother signed over their houses to a bail bondsman to raise bail for Theresa after she was charged with the same offense.
Most of these details did not arise in his Senate confirmation hearings, even though they might reasonably have been thought to affect his views about crime, drug and alcohol policy, and sentencing — all issues overseen or influenced by an attorney general.
Their omissions illustrate the remarkable extent to which Gonzales, 51, has managed to control the telling of his life story and the impenetrability of his outwardly mild and friendly manner.
They are also a function of Gonzales’ peculiar rise to power, an official whose career in government, first in Texas and then in Washington, has been under the protective wing of a single man. Since 1995, Gonzales has worked exclusively in jobs given to him by George W. Bush.
Sort of clarifies why the Constitution has become so shreddable, doesn't it? The ulitmate lapdog in the penultimate position of protecting his master.
Bush made him, and he can break him just as easily. So far though, the prezdent is acting "pugnacious":
Republicans close to the White House tell CBS News that President Bush is in "his usual posture: pugnacious, that no one is going to tell him who to fire." But sources also said Gonzales' firing is just a matter of time.
The White House is bracing for a weekend of criticism and more calls for Gonzales to go. One source (says) he's never seen the administration in such deep denial, and Republicans are growing increasingly restless for the president to take action.
If Gonzales is not fired, then he should be impeached. Forthwith.
Along with Dr. Frankenstein.
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