Gonzales testimony fails to impress

If the reports circulating that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had to take charge and impress everyone with his testimony before a Senate committee Thursday are true, then Gonzales may not be in the Bush cabinet much longer.
Even senators from Gonzales' Republican party were not impressed with his testimony as Gonzales tried to explain his actions in the time before, during, and after the dismissal of eight U. S. attorneys:

Gonzales conceded that he never looked at the prosecutors' performance reviews and did not know why two of them were being removed until after they were fired. He also said he did not remember a final high-level meeting in his office suite in November to discuss the firings, nor did he remember when he decided to carry out the dismissals.

"I recall making the decision," Gonzales said at one point. "I don't recall when the decision was made."

The numerous uncertainties irritated many of the Republican committee members, who criticized Gonzales for bungling the dismissals and their aftermath, and questioned his apparent disconnection from the process. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), the panel's most conservative member, joined Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and other committee Democrats in calling on Gonzales to resign.

One of the prosecutors who was fired was Bud Cummins of Arkansas, who was asked to resign right in the middle of an investigation into the awarding of lucrative license fee offices by Governor Matt Blunt's administration.