Alberto Gonzales is at the Washington Witch Trials this morning (no, Hillary is out of town).

“WASHINGTON - His job in jeopardy, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales insisted Thursday he played only a small role in the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors. Skeptical senators reacted with disbelief.

“We have to evaluate whether you are really being forthright,” Sen. Arlen Specter bluntly informed the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

The Pennsylvania Republican said Gonzales’ description was “significantly if not totally at variance with the facts.”

“I don’t want to quarrel with you,” Gonzales replied.

The exchange punctuated a long morning of testimony for Gonzales, who told the committee there was no impropriety in last winter’s firings and said the decision was “justified and should stand.”

Gonzales conceded that “reasonable people might disagree” with the decision. He said the process by which the U.S. attorneys were dismissed was “nowhere near as rigorous or structured as it should have been.”

Offering an apology to the eight and their families, he also said he had “never sought to mislead or deceive the Congress or the American people” on that or any other matter.

Democrats expressed skepticism at the attorney general’s testimony.

‚ÄúSince you apparently knew very little about the performance about the replaced United States attorneys, how can you testify that the judgment ought to stand?‚Äù asked Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass.”

Whatever “Drown ‘em and Forget ‘em”. You should know about unqualified AGs hired only because they’re “family”.

I hope Spector knows that his time is coming for reelection and this time there will be no joy. About time, he’s been a wart on the ass of conservative progress since we saved his hide back in 2004.

I’m glad that there are still a few Republicans with some backbone:

“Republicans have urged Gonzales to be more assertive and answer the questions more specifically than he did in his prepared testimony, which was released by the Justice Department on Sunday in anticipation that the hearing would be held Tuesday.

“I hope he doesn’t apologize,” said Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, who spoke with Gonzales a week ago. “He is in a really miserable position where people are focused and saying nasty things. He thinks that he acted appropriately. I told him he ought to be less gracious in his responses.”

Said Hatch: “If he just answers the questions, he’ll be fine.”

Meanwhile, Schumer is still acting as though a conflict of interest doesn’t exist. Perhaps when this is done it might be a good thing to look into his involvement behind the scenes.

UPDATE: Just back in and reviewing the conservative take on Gonzales. Byron York’s strikes me as a symptom of an underlying problem people are having.

“It has been a disastrous morning for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The major problem with his testimony is that Gonzales maintains, in essence, that he doesn‚Äôt know why he fired at least some of the eight dismissed U.S. attorneys. When, under questioning by Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, Gonzales listed the reasons for each firing, it was clear that in a number of cases, he had reconstructed the reason for the dismissal after the fact. He didn‚Äôt know why he fired them at the time, other than the action was recommended by senior Justice Department staff.

Later, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham returned to the subject. ‚ÄúMr. Attorney General, most of this is a stretch,‚Äù Graham told Gonzales. ‚ÄúI think most of them [the U.S. attorneys] had personality disagreements with the White House, and you made up reasons to fire them.‚Äù Gonzales disagreed but had nothing to support his position. Throughout the morning, Gonzales insisted that he is the man in charge of the Justice Department, and accepted responsibility for the firings, but his testimony suggests he had little idea what was going on.”

Sheesh. It’s amazing how clueless our own can be. Note to President Graham, “It doesn’t matter if he intended to fire them, made up reasons, or just had a bad hair day - ONCE AGAIN FOR EMPHASIS - they served at the pleasure of the President - period.

Want to know why we lost the 2006 midterm election? Second-quessing-liberal-butt-munchers on our side had a lot to do with it. Yes, there are such things as RINO journalists as well.

Paul at Powerline restores my faith to a certain extent:

“Now, President Bush might well want a more hands on Attorney General, and I certainly would. But unless the decisions made by staff and approved by Gonzales were poor or corrupt ones, I don’t think his deference to staff requires his resignation or termination. I’ve seen no account in which the Senators have made much headway in terms of showing that particular decisions were poor or corrupt.”

Well said.