THE POLITICS OF SHAME. I've been just a bit skeptical of suggestions that Gonzales is done; in any normal administration, yes, such a furor would probably result in a resignation, but as we've seen time and again, this is not a normal administration. It doesn't play by the same rules. Most specifically, it doesn't seem to respond to shame. Shame depends, more or less, on a broad agreement about right and wrong, and on the idea that transgressing norms of appropriate behavior should have some consequence, even if the consequence doesn't, strictly speaking, come in the form of a legal penalty. President Bush has repeatedly demonstrated that he simply doesn't have a conventional understanding of right and wrong; thus, it's really, really hard to shame him or his administration into doing something. Now, his call of support to Gonzales may just be a "vote of confidence" of the sort received by coaches who are about to be fired. But I wouldn't be at all surprised if he stands by the AG.
--Robert Farley
