"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." -Abraham Lincoln
I must confess I was shocked at the seemingly sudden departure of Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. His masochistic desire to be a human piñata before the Senate Judiciary Committee brought new meaning to the term "serve at the pleasure of the president."
After a public undressing before Congress, contradictory statements, and the inability to recall anything of substance, it was quite evident that the only thing (or shall I say person) holding Gonzales up was George W. Bush.
Assuming a modicum of intellectual honesty, even a majority of the president's staunchest supporters would be hard pressed not to conclude that the Justice Department, which is the central nervous system for any administration, is at best in disarray.
As Gonzales prepares to exit the public stage, the residue of destruction within the Justice Department remains. The Justice Department oversees aspects of the environment, civil rights, fights organized crime, responsible for antitrust laws, combats terrorism, and FBI. It must always maintain its independent voice.
Never was it designed to be a political tool of an administration the way it has been used during the Bush years; and that cannot be blamed exclusively on Gonzales.
Long before Gonzales took the oath of office as the nation's 80th and the first Hispanic Attorney General there were obvious indicators that his loyalty to George Bush was greater than to the rule of law. One need go no further than the veracity at which he provided legal justification for more than 50 executions while serving as then Governor Bush's legal counsel in Texas--making it the nation's execution capitol and by extension the world's.
Now that he is gone, it is convenient to say: "Good riddance!" But the door that led to Gonzales as chief enabler to the president was opened on September 14, 2001.
That was when the president, drawing on his days as a Yale cheerleader, stood at ground zero with a bullhorn and whipped the crowd on hand and the public at-large into a frenzy, thereby providing himself with a new found raison d'etre.
To the thundering chants of "USA, USA," the president was granted permission by an overwhelming majority of the American people to keep the country safe by any means necessary.
Manipulating the tragedy of 9/11 in the most political means possible, the president used the toxins of fear to render the Constitution to a secondary consideration.
This atmosphere allowed Gonzales to do what he did best--not to offer legal advice, which may include a periodic "no", but rather provide some semblance of justification with the sole purpose being to provide the "how."
Without the inclusion of the bizarre firings of 8 U.S. attorneys, our unhealthy trust in the president provided Gonzales the pathway to validate Abu Grahib, Guantanamo Bay, while ignoring the Geneva Conventions and habeas corpus.
This behavior was punctuated on March 10, 2004 when as White House counsel, Gonzales, along with White House Chief of Staff, Andy Card brazenly went to the hospital bed of a seriously ill then Attorney General John Ashcroft in an attempt to ask Ashcroft to override Justice Department officials and reauthorize a secret domestic wiretapping program.
No doubt, many will focus on Gonzales' incompetence but it was his willingness to view his primary job as representing Bush as governor and president when he should have placed more emphasis on the people's business, making him the perfect foil to do the administration's nefarious bidding. But it was the president who abused the power; Gonzales just showed him the way.
Going forward, we should not forget September 14, 2001. We collectively allowed the tragedy of 9/11 to be more important than our long-held democratic values. Without that Faustian bargain, it is doubtful there would have been justification through silence on many of the administration's controversial acts.
On that day, we came very close to realizing Padme's haunting reflections in Star Wars Episode III, "So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause."
Byron Williams is an Oakland pastor and syndicated columnist. E-mail him at byron@byronspeaks.com or leave a message at (510) 208-6417.