Alberto Gonzales’ tenure as U.S. attorney general was tough to defend. The Brennan Center for Justice’s Andrew Cohen, during his time as CBS News’ chief legal analyst, wrote in 2007, “By any reasonable standard, the Gonzales Era at the Justice Department is void of almost all redemptive qualities. He brought shame and disgrace to the Department.” A year later, Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick added that Gonzales helped create a Justice Department in which “politics sometimes had no end.” Nevertheless, Gonzales remained quite popular with Republicans, even after he left George W. Bush’s cabinet, which makes his latest Washington Post op-ed all...
