Republicans See Gonzales as Weak Link for '08

There's another reason--discussed privately but rarely cited in public--that so many Republican senators are upset with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, reports Chief White House Correspondent Kenneth T. Walsh.

More and more lawmakers are concluding that he has become such a weak advocate for conservative policies that he won't be an effective defender of those policies in the 2008 campaign, when the GOP will need all the help it can get to defend seats and try to recapture control of Congress.

So far, most of the publicly expressed doubts about Gonzales have focused on his credibility, his shifting explanations for the firing of eight U.S. attorneys, and whether the attorneys were dismissed for improper political reasons. That was the gist of much of the grilling of Gonzales at Thursday's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. It was clear that his support is weak or nonexistent among Democrats and shaky among Republicans. GOP Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma even called for Gonzales's resignation.

Afterward, White House Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino said Gonzales still "has the full confidence of the president." Perino added: "President Bush was pleased with the attorney general's testimony today. After hours of testimony in which he answered all of the senators' questions and provided thousands of pages of documents, he again showed that nothing improper occurred. He admitted the matter could have been handled much better, and he apologized for the disruption to the lives of the U.S. attorneys involved, as well as for the lack of clarity in his initial responses."

But many GOP senators and other prominent Republicans say the defense of Gonzales comes too late. They don't think he has the credibility, the competence, or the communications skills to defend GOP policies on issues ranging from domestic surveillance to Guantanamo Bay, and they want a better advocate during campaign season. But few want to raise those political issues publicly, according to GOP insiders who are well connected on Capitol Hill. Gonzales did little or nothing to reduce GOP concerns at yesterday's hearing.

And despite the White House claims that Bush still stands behind him, Gonzales's fate remains up in the air, according to administration insiders. Much will depend on how many Republicans join Coburn in calling for his resignation, either publicly or privately, in the next week.