Opinion: Report on firings returns Gonzales, and race card, to spotlight

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Before Monday’s report on the firing of nine U.S. attorneys, Alberto R. Gonzales was forgotten and gone. He’s back in the news with a finding by two Justice Department watchdogs that the former attorney general (and his deputy) “abdicated their responsibility to safeguard the integrity and independence of the department…”

Gonzales’ AWOL management style was perhaps not foreseeable in 2005 when he went before the U.S. Senate for confirmation hearings. But other problematic qualities were obvious -- notably his chumminess with George W. Bush going back to Texas and his compliant attitude toward cutting corners in the war on terror. So how did he win confirmation on a 60-36 vote?

One clue came in the opening statement of Sen. Arlen Specter, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee in charge of Gonzales’ confirmation: ‘Judge Gonzales comes to this nomination with a very distinguished career; really a Horatio Alger story. Hispanic background, of seven siblings, the first to go to college, attended the Air Force Academy for two years and then received degrees from Rice and Harvard Law School’ (emphasis added).

Not for the first time, a nominee successfully played the race -- or ethnicity -- card. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was confirmed with plenty of votes from Democrats who overlooked his conservative philosophy because he would be the first Italian-American to serve on the court. Justice Clarence Thomas may have owed his much narrower confirmation to his race -- and his rags-to-Republican resilience.

‘I’ve overcome a lot of obstacles in my life to become attorney general,’ he told reporters. As Sarah Palin may also demonstrate, an inspirational biography is not necessarily a qualification for public office.