Bush Aides Worry About Bush's Loyalty to Gonzales
There is a growing frustration among Republican strategists and even Bush advisers that the president will stick with troubled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales too long, causing damage to him just as his polls appear to be bottoming out.
"I worry that he hangs on to the AG long enough to do maximum damage to himself," said one adviser to the administration and congressional Republicans. A key congressional aide said Republicans fear he will repeat his firing of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, which came after the midterm election despite GOP calls for his ouster.
"It's about as frustrating as it was for them to hang on to Rumsfeld and then fire him the day after the election," said the aide. Another GOP adviser said that he had hoped Bush would "act like Bob Gates," the new defense secretary, who cleaned house after the Walter Reed Army Medical Center was hit for bad conditions.
But in keeping Gonzales amid deep concerns in the West Wing over the handling of the firing of federal prosecutors, the adviser said that the president is rekindling the image of incompetence.
"This nicely enhances the Democratic legend that the GOP is both corrupt and incompetent," the adviser said. "I am beginning to wish that Kerry won–at least we would still have Congress. What a crummy lost opportunity this entire second term has become."
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