And then there were…?

So embattled A.G. Alberto Gonzales is finally going away, the latest Bush administration official to take his faulty memory and infamous work-product with him back to the private sector. Sure, it’s a kind of triumph for truth, justice and The American Way but in the end, what purpose does it serve? The Dems will get to give W’s next nominee the grilling that Gonzales should have received and that would probably have revealed his lack of qualification for the post, but even the promise of a grueling confirmation fight feels like a pyrrhic victory.

For one thing, the Dems don’t seem to be very good at seizing political advantages anymore. Been too many years of going-along-to-get-along to avoid being labeled as “weak on terror” for them to even remember what it was like to have balls. And even if they do deliver a good televised ass-kicking to the hapless nominee-to-come, who cares? Bush is the lamest of lame ducks, and short of another Supreme Court retirement, his Presidential lame-ass goose is good and cooked. He could appoint Clarence Darrow or Joseph Goebbels as A.G. and it wouldn't make a lick of difference at this point.

For another thing, I actually feel myself feeling bad for Alberto Gonzales. Just look at the guy, his hang-dog countenance, his wish-I-were-anyplace-else-but-here demeanor during Congressional questioning... This is no Mastermind, no Machiavellian schemer who was proactive in the Bush administration’s deconstruction of American civil liberties. The guy is a Schmo. He strikes me as the ultimate roll-up-his-sleeves and follow orders kind of guy; he was the Bush family’s Luca Brasi, a sad sack ‘soldier’ whose destiny was always going to end with sleeping with the fishes.

They want me to try to strong-arm the hospitalized, drugged Attorney General into signing documents that will deny every American fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution? ... Sure, okay. There’s gotta be a good reason for it; I don't have to understand what it is. Write a memo officially endorsing torturing prisoners in American custody? ... Okay. Sure it sounds mean, but President Bush, well, he’s kind of my hero. He’s got to have a good reason...

See what I mean? I'm not saying his lack of evil intent should excuse anything he did, and he ought to be held to account legally like the rest of W’s crooked cronies, but I don’t see him as an intrinsically nasty piece of work, ala Rummy and Rove for instance. He’s the classic guy who fell in with the wrong bunch. If he had been plucked out of obscurity by, say, Oprah instead of the Bush Clan, he might be handing out new cars to grateful studio audiences right now instead of facing an early retirement of addressing rubber chicken dinners and dodging subpoenas.

It’s just hard to feel really good about such a minor triumph. Had it come a year or two ago, I think I’d be a lot more excited. At this late date though, it’s a paper victory, not really a tactical one, or one with the promise of better days to come attached to it.

I keep coming back to poor, clueless, sycophantic Al Gonzales. I wonder how long Gonzo’s been begging his BFF Bush to let him go? I'd wager for quite a while now. This last year has to have been … ahem … torture for him. I tell ya, with friends like the President, who needs enemas?