August 27, 2007 5:21 PM

Working Assets Activism Helps Drive Gonzales Out

Working Assets first called for Alberto Gonzales' impeachment back in March of 2007. His actions at that time -- in abusing the Patriot Act, in designing policies and legal justifications for the U.S. to act contrary to the Geneva Convention, and in defying his own staff recommendations that a new voter-ID law in Georgia amounted to an illegal and discriminatory poll tax -- certainly deserved impeachment.

We then witnessed the pathetic spectacle of an attorney general flat-out lying to the American public, as well as to Congressional investigators. (As Michael points out below, he'll still need to answer for these and other crimes.)

Since our first call for his impeachment, more than 108,200 activists' messages went in to Congress regarding Gonzales' misdeeds. Approximately 24,000 of those were hard-copy Citizen Action Letters ordered by Working Assets customers through their phone bills; the rest were emails and faxes sent through our ActForChange.com activism site.

We certainly won't claim all the credit for Gonzales' departure, but it sure is nice to see him go -- better late than never. (Don't let the door hit you, Al.)

Now, given Gonzales' often-faulty memory, the key question really is -- does he remember resigning? Does he even remember serving as Attorney General at all?

Let's hope that Congress uses its subpoena power to find out those, and a whole lot of other details. And if Congress is looking for some real accountabilty higher up the food chain, let's ask them to impeach Dick Cheney -- whose misdeeds have arguably had an even worse effect on our nation.