1115.org

The consensus was that this was going to be Alberto Gonzales‘ make or break day. The consensus is that he didn’t make the grade. Not even close.

All that talk of the intensive preparation Gonzales was putting in must have been a cruel joke at Alberto’s expense. He certainly showed no signs whatsoever of having bothered to prepare at all, no signs of having been coached by anyone at all, let alone by two guys who allegedly knew what they were doing. Showed no signs in terms of what we are forced to refer to as the “substance” of his responses to the questions he, and everyone else, knew he was going to be asked. Showed no signs in terms of his tone and body language towards the Senators asking him the questions.

It’s hard to imagine Gonzales doing worse if he had decided at the last minute to get thoroughly drunk and go out in a blaze of “f***-all-you-bastards” glory.

When your friends describe your performance as “watching a clubbing of [a] baby seal”, it can safely be said you didn’t have a very good day.

(Of course, that eminently quotable quote comes to us from CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux — and only from her — and she ascribes it only to “one prominent Republican”, so maybe she’s just pulling an Andrea Mitchell?)

So let me just give you the considered judgment of the NYT:

if Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had gone to the Senate yesterday to convince the world that he ought to be fired, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a better job, short of simply admitting the obvious: that the firing of eight United States attorneys was a partisan purge.

Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch.

He had no trouble remembering complaints from his bosses and Republican lawmakers about federal prosecutors who were not playing ball with the Republican Party’s efforts to drum up election fraud charges against Democratic politicians and Democratic voters. But he had no idea whether any of the 93 United States attorneys working for him — let alone the ones he fired — were doing a good job prosecuting real crimes.

He delegated responsibility for purging their ranks to an inexperienced and incompetent assistant who, if that’s possible, was even more of a plodding apparatchik. Mr. Gonzales failed to create the most rudimentary standards for judging the prosecutors’ work, except for political fealty. And when it came time to explain his inept decision making to the public, he gave a false account that was instantly and repeatedly contradicted by sworn testimony.

(Depending on how my day goes, I will try to be back later with some of my favorite moments from yesterday.)