Editorial: Gonzales gets the message

In offering his resignation Monday, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally acknowledged what most Americans recognized months ago: The U.S. Department of Justice has lost the confidence of the public, the Congress and the legal profession, and it cannot function until it regains that trust. His departure will give President Bush and Congress the opportunity -- indeed, the obligation -- to restore the department's reputation for professionalism and impartiality.

Personal loyalty has been a hallmark of the Bush administration, but as Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota observed yesterday, loyalty can be a virtue or a liability; it became a liability in the case of Gonzales. Columbia University law professor Daniel Richman, a former assistant U.S. attorney, says federal prosecutors were instructed to pursue cases that advanced the White House political agenda -- immigration and voter-fraud cases, in particular --which undercut the professional judgment and local autonomy necessary for effective law enforcement. Congressional testimony has established that political zealotry crept into the selection of U.S. attorneys and staff in the department's Civil Rights division. Gonzales' response -- that he never saw the memos -- hardly inspired confidence in his leadership.

The result? Talented young attorneys were repelled from a career in federal service; the general public grew more cynical about the use of federal resources. "If federal prosecutors are simply seen as carrying water for the White House, their credibility in front of judges and juries will be deeply threatened," Richman observes. "Prosecutors are by nature apolitical," says Sen. Amy Klobuchar, herself a former prosecutor. "There's nothing harder for them than to have this cloud hanging over their heads."

Fortunately, replacing Gonzales will give the president a chance to regain the public's confidence in his judgment and demonstrate his respect for the balance of powers -- a balance toward which Gonzales seemed contemptuous or oblivious. A starting point would be to find a nominee of unquestioned stature, someone in the tradition of Richard Thornburgh, the former governor who served President George H.W. Bush as attorney general, or Edward Levi, the University of Chicago law dean who served President Gerald Ford.

Lawmakers, who came to express bipartisan frustration with Gonzales' stonewalling, need to press ahead with inquiries into politicization of the U.S. attorney and civil-rights operations. The point is not to reopen the wounds of the past, but to prevent abuses in the future.

In tendering his resignation Gonzales seemed to admit that it's too late for him to redeem his reputation on Capitol Hill and in legal circles. It's not too late for the president to redeem the Justice Department.