Let me try one more time. See if this makes sense to you.
Gonzalez was never going to be the nominee, else he wouldn't have been placed in the AG postion, because the President doesn't want to have to go through two confirmation hearings, both for a justice and a new AG.
Conservatives who foolishly thought Gonzalez was going to be the nominee have been going ballistic and trashing him in the press. The left has seized upon this as both a way to make the Right look anti-Hispanic and extreme, and also a way to paint whomever is nominated as a "tool of the extremists," as well as portraying Bush as beholden to the Christian Right.
You may not care about this, but if we want to win elections in 2006, the middle voters need to not believe this.
In addition, Al Gonzalez is a close friend of the President, and attacking him in public is not going to make the President happy. What is the point in making the President angry at groups whom he would normally pay attention to?
Continued agitation about Gonzalez is playing into the spin put out by the Left (aka New York Times/Washington Post/Tim Russert/CNN etc.).
I haven't been paying real close attention, in that I haven't heard the supposed "shrill rhetoric instigated by the right wingers." But my thoought is that the left-leaning press is inclined to solicit comments if none are forthcoming, and then to paint whatever is said in the most shrill light possible.
In other words, the press can make hay ANY time a Christian-based group expresses ANY political view. That's just the way it is.
And now the press gets a bonus - it can write a story about how the GOP and the president are attacking right-wing Christian groups. Even your comment could be spun by a creative press as an attack against conservatives, by a GOP representative ...
Conservatives who foolishly thought Gonzalez was going to be the nominee have been going ballistic and trashing him in the press.
What was said that amounts to trashing?