Analysis: Gonzales Woe on Familiar Track

U.S. Attorney Gen. Alberto Gonzales listens to a panel during a discussion on Project Safe Childhood Tuesday, March 27, 2007 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato) (Kiichiro Sato - AP)

Paul Light, a New York University professor of public policy, predicts Gonzales' resignation is just a matter of time. He says Gonzales will continue to lose support among Republicans, who have expressed annoyance about being misled, as he keeps amending his account of his role in the eight firings.

"It's not death by a thousand cuts. It's death by eight self-inflicted wounds," said Light.

In nearly every instance where a Cabinet member or top official has been forced to resign it is because they've become snarled "in a web of his or her own making. It involves not being forthright from the very beginning and often involves a relatively inelegant or hamhanded effort to repair the damage," Light said.

More lawmakers are calling for Gonzales' resignation, including Sen. John E. Sununu, R-N.H., the son of the chief of staff dismissed by Bush's father. Gonzales has "a cloud hanging over his credibility," said Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

Bruce Buchanan, a political science professor and longtime Bush watcher at the University of Texas, said that in encouraging Gonzales to mend fences on Capitol Hill, the president was "signaling that Gonzales has something to prove before he can expect permanent loyalty."

"Right now there's this evidence out there suggesting that Gonzales, who said he hadn't been in the loop, was in fact in the loop. If he can't reconcile that kind of evidence, then he's not likely to survive," Buchanan said.

Among other issues is Gonzales' March 13 denial that he participated in discussions or saw any documents about the firings, despite documents that show he attended a Nov. 27 meeting with senior aides on the topic, where he approved a detailed plan to carry out the firings. E-mails have also surfaced indicating that Rove had an early hand in the dismissals.

For the most part, presidents don't like firing people or asking for their resignations, said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato. "They don't want to have to deliver the bad news themselves."

As to Gonzales' fate, "historically the single indication is when a critical mass of members of the president's own party starts calling for the resignation of the official," Sabato said. "Then he or she almost always goes."

Bush had no trouble replacing his first treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, who openly disagreed with him on the need for more tax cuts; or economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey, who argued early on _ correctly _ that the occupation of Iraq could cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars.

Somewhat more politically awkward for Bush were the forced resignations of Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary last November, shortly after Bush said he had no plans to replace him; and of Michael Brown as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency after Hurricane Katrina, despite Bush's upbeat, "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job."

On the other hand, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff has managed to survive numerous calls to resign after Katrina.

President Clinton allowed Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders to resign in 1994 after a storm of controversy over her frank comments on sex education and masturbation. But despite serious conflicts between the Clinton White House and Attorney General Janet Reno, Reno never resigned.

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EDITOR'S NOTE _ Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973.