Remarkably Unengaged

“Remarkably unengaged” seems to be one of the defining characteristics of the Bush administration for the past 8 years. Today’s installment describes former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales in a report issued by the Justice Department following an investigation into political firings of Attorneys General. So far, the White House has successfully stonewalled the investigation enough to prevent criminal charges from being brought, but following the report, a special prosecutor will continue the investigation to determine whether such charges are appropriate.

[The report] provided particular detail in the dismissal of David C. Iglesias, a former New Mexico prosecutor who was let go at the prodding of Republican leaders in Washington and New Mexico who were dissatisfied with his work in investigating accusations against Democrats. Despite the denials of the Bush administration, the political pressure was “the real reason” for Mr. Iglesias’s dismissal, the report said.
. . .
The controversy over the dismissals of nine federal prosecutors led to the resignation of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales last September, and the report saves some of its harshest criticism for him. It concludes that Mr. Gonzales was “remarkably unengaged” in an unprecedented process to fire a large number of prosecutors at once, and it says that he, along with his deputy at the time, Paul J. McNulty, “abdicated their responsibility” to ensure the integrity of the process and left it mainly to Mr. Gonzales’s chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson.

The report also faulted Mr. Gonzales’s misstatements to Congress and the news media about the true reasons for the dismissals and his “extraordinary lack of recollection about the entire removal process.”