Leading Conservatives Demand that Gonzales Go

By Scott Horton

A group of some of the nation’s best known conservatives has demanded that Alberto Gonzales resign from his position as attorney general. As Time magazine reports, the conservative leaders write:

“Mr. Gonzales has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution’s time-honored checks and balances,” it declares. “He has brought rule of law into disrepute, and debased honesty as the coin of the realm.” Alluding to ongoing scandal, it notes: “He has engendered the suspicion that partisan politics trumps evenhanded law enforcement in the Department of Justice.”

The letter concludes by saying, “Attorney General Gonzales has proven an unsuitable steward of the law and should resign for the good of the country . . . The President should accept the resignation, and set a standard to which the wise and honest might repair in nominating a successor . . . “

The signers included Bruce Fein, a former senior official in the Reagan Justice Department who has worked closely with the Bush Administration to support its court nominees; David Keene, chairman of the influential American Conservative Union; Richard Viguerie, a well-known GOP direct mail expert and fundraiser; Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman from Georgia who was a manager of the GOP effort to impeach President Clinton, and John Whitehead, head of the Rutherford Institute, a conservative religious freedoms organization.