IMPEACH BUSH

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has reportedly begun telling friends and associates that he has weathered the storm over the firing of nine United States attorneys and that his job is safe despite widespread calls for his resignation. We can only hope he is wrong. Not only is the purge of the attorneys extremely serious, it is part of a long chain of evidence that Mr. Gonzales does not have the ability or the moral compass to do his vitally important job.

Consider Mr. Gonzales's performance the other day before the House Judiciary Committee, where the chairman, John Conyers Jr., framed the questioning with admirable simplicity: who made up the list of prosecutors to be fired, and why? That should not be a hard question. The nine prosecutors who are now known to have been purged — it was eight until the case of Todd Graves of Missouri came to light this week — are nearly 10 percent of all United States attorneys. It defies belief that an attorney general would allow so many top officials to be fired without being well aware of the reasons.

Yet that was just what Mr. Gonzales claimed. He delegated, he was not informed, he just could not recall. None of it was believable. When asked by Representative Robert Wexler who decided to fire David Iglesias, the United States attorney in New Mexico, Mr. Gonzales flatly stated that President Bush and Vice President Cheney did not. He said he did not know who chose individual prosecutors to be fired, but he was certain that it was not his bosses.

As disturbing as Mr. Gonzales's convenient memory lapses and apparent prevarications was his unwillingness to engage the moral seriousness of this scandal. He seemed indifferent when asked if it would be a bad thing if United States attorneys — critically important players in the justice system — were pushed out to make room for eager young Republicans. He kept trying to change the subject from the administration's efforts to politicize the rule of law to the agenda he claims now preoccupies him — fighting terrorism, crime and child predators.

Nothing in this stumbling, evasive, amnesia-filled performance gave any reassurance that the firings were proper. It was a reminder that Mr. Gonzales's record was deplorable before the prosecutor purge. He was an architect of policies in the war on terror that the Supreme Court has held to be illegal and unconstitutional. He has defended President Bush's illegal domestic wiretapping operations with a zeal terrifying in the head of an agency that is supposed to uphold the Constitution — not manufacture excuses for the president to trample on it. There is also evidence that he allowed ideologues to pack career positions at the Justice Department with thinly credentialed hires, chosen for their party affiliation.

Beyond the unseemly images of Mr. Gonzales high-fiving his team for riding out the attorneys scandal, the spin from some quarters was that his testimony was successful — simply because he smiled blankly and refused to be ruffled when his answers and integrity were challenged.

Mr. Gonzales can cling to his office as long as the president supports him and Congress does not impeach him. The White House clearly has reasserted some party discipline since his Senate appearance the other week, when several Republicans called for his resignation. But that does not mean it is in anyone's interest for him to stay on. The Justice Department is too important to be saddled with a year and a half more of such shoddy leadership.