Novak: Bush Isolated From GOP Lawmakers

Two weeks earlier on Capitol Hill, there was a ground swell of Republican demands -- public and private -- that President Bush pardon the convicted Scooter Libby. Last week, as Alberto Gonzales came under withering Democratic fire, there were no public GOP declarations of support amid private predictions of the attorney general's demise.

Republican leaders in Congress (asking not to be quoted by name) early last week predicted Gonzales would fall because the Justice Department botched firing eight U.S. attorneys. By week's end, they stipulated that the president would not sack his longtime aide and that Gonzales would leave only on his own initiative. But there was still an ominous lack of congressional support for him.

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