Time to Go, Mr. Gonzales

Alberto Gonzales at the Justice Department yesterday. (By Stephanie Kuykendal -- Bloomberg News)

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And it wasn't until this week that Justice finally figured out it hadn't figured out the whole story? If that's true -- and I'm not sure which would be worse -- why should anyone believe this crowd is capable of getting its congressional story straight in the future?

Meantime, the pages of e-mails released yesterday show how -- while Gonzales hummed happily above the fray -- his lieutenants carefully choreographed the firings, down to making sure that the relevant senators were called at precisely the same time the ousted prosecutors were to be informed of their fates, and delaying the moment of truth until they left a meeting of federal prosecutors "to reduce chatter."

When Arkansas senators balked at installing Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin in the U.S. attorney's job there, Sampson recommended that the department "gum this to death." If the senators ultimately balk, he said, "then we can tell them we'll look for other candidates . . . and otherwise run out the clock. All of this should be done in 'good faith' of course." Of course.

In his now famous "overblown personnel matter" column in USA Today last week, Gonzales wrote, "While I am grateful for the public service of these seven U.S. attorneys, they simply lost my confidence." (Or did he mean Kyle Sampson's confidence?)

It's time -- past time -- for the president to say the same, perhaps more quietly and more politely, about his friend, his counselor and his failed attorney general.

marcusr@washpost.com