Fire Gonzales?

Some kind of footnote has to be offered in respect of Senator Schumer's call for President Bush to fire Attorney General Gonzales. Mr. Schumer fetched up with this brainstorm Sunday in an appearance on CBS's "Face the Nation," hours after the New York Times struck upon the same thought in an editorial in its Sunday edition. The thing to bear in mind in respect of these startling developments is that neither the Times nor Senator Schumer ever thought Mr. Gonzales should have been the attorney general to begin with. Mr. Schumer thought his confirmation would put a dagger through the heart of the Constitution, and he was among the 36 senators who voted against. The Times ran out an editorial before the confirmation vote, headlined "The Wrong Attorney General" and the day afterward declared that the confirmation vote was "depressing" and that "Mr. Gonzales was a bad choice for attorney general." So the latest round of calls for Mr. Gonzales to resign have nothing to do with his performance as attorney general. The ones, like Senator Schumer and the New York Times, calling for his resignation now didn't think he should be holding the office before he had even spent a minute on the job.