Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

The strongest criticism at today’s Senate hearing early this afternoon came from Sen. Tom Coburn (Rep. - Okla.) (inset) when told Attorney General Alberto Gonzales directly that he should resign.

Coburn was outraged that Gonzales refused to give the eight fired U.S. Attorneys reasons for their being fired from their jobs.

Gonzales’ response? “As a legal matter, they’re not entitled to” have reasons for losing their jobs. He beleives that any mistakes he made were “moral,” not legal. “One of the things I would have done would have been to be more respectful,” he explained, and done a better job of communicating with U.S. Attorneys.

It’s the Attorney General’s stock “Cool Hand Luke” defense admitting that he’s had a big problem with failing to communicate effectively with U.S. Atorneys.

“Why would we not use the same standards to judge your performance as we did to judge those dismissed U.S. Attorneys?” Coburn continued.

Gonzales refused to answer the question, even after it was repeated several times. Instead he resorted to several of his standard rebuffs to questions that put him in a defensive position, saying either: “I think that’s a fair question,” or that “the department under my leadership has done some great things.”

A classic negotiation strategy that many litigators are familiar with: attempt to diffuse the conflict by acknowledging the interrogators concerns, show some level of acceptance of responsibility for errors, and then site one’s accomplishments.