I only had a chance to watch parts of Alberto Gonzales' testimony yesterday. But from what I saw, and all the news reports I read, it seems to me that it's in the country's best interests for Gonzales to resign.

  In my view, the issue is not whether Gonzales misspoke during a press conference, or whether he bungled this particular news story. All in all, that's pretty small beans. The real issue is whether Gonzales understands and can fulfill the proper role of an Attorney General of the United States. The U.S. Attorney story and Gonzales's testimony gave us a window into that question. And from what I've seen, it doesn't leave me with any confidence that Gonzales has what it takes to be AG.

  In particular, the hearings left the strong impression that Gonzales isn't the strong and independent decisionmaker that the Justice Department needs. It's one thing to be out of the loop on some personnel matters; it's another to not even be particularly interested in the functioning of your own department. What struck me the most about Gonzales's testimony is that it didn't seem like he really cared about who the U.S. Attorneys are. If I recall correctly, Gonzales didn't even ask about what criteria were being used to determine who should stay and who should go. That's pretty remarkable to me: U.S. Attorneys are critical players in the federal law enforcement system. I would think that any Attorney General would at the very least be keenly interested in knowing who was being booted out and why.

  I don't know if the U.S. Attorney purge story will actually play out into something truly scandalous. There's some smoke, but it's hard to tell if there's any fire. Perhaps the U.S. Attorneys were fired for partisan political reasons, or perhaps this was just a chaotic and random decision. Or perhaps some mixture of the two. But the fallout from the story has given us a new perspective on Attorney General Gonzales's role within DOJ. And the picture it suggests is that Gonzales isn't the right person for the job.