Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

Gonzales got very defensive when Sen. Specter grilled him at today’s Senate hearing about about his involvement in the terminations of eight U.S. Attorneys on Dec. 7, 2006.

Specter went through a chronology of Gonzales’ involvement in meetings and memos leading up to the firings, and asked him if he prepared for those meetings like he prepared for today’s Senate hearing.

Gonzales angerly interjected, telling Specter: “Sir, I prepare for every hearing.”

Then Specter responded to the quip by asking the Attorney General if he prepared for the job terminations that he was inovlved with to the same extent that he prepared for hearings.

Gonzales says that firing U.S. Attorney General Daniel Bogden in Nevada was “the closest” call.

Among the reasons listed, he wanted “a sense of new energy in that office.”

He blames “the Department” for “not having a good enough mechanism to communicate with U.S. Attorneys.”  It’s the Cool Hand Luke defense: that the DOJ (rather than the person heading the agency) failed to communicate.

Capitol Hill will shift its attention tomorrow morning from the tragic slayings at nearby Virginia Tech to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing where Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will make his last stand to defend his firing of eight career prosecutors at the Justice Department.

If you look at the Executive Branch, Gonzales is probably one of the three most ‘Loyal Bushies’ in the President’s administration. Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are the other two that come to mind. The Washington Post suggests that a key issue that the White House will have to decide tomorrow at tomorrow’s hearing is “whether to keep Gonzales, the very model of a loyal Bushie.”

The question should really be turned around, however, to consider just how loyal a Bushie is Gonzales? Will he go down with the sinking shp, resign, or fight to the finish?