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Non-elected government officials of any administration serve at the pleasure of the president. That means the president can have anyone removed from the administration at any time, for what ever reason he chooses.

The big brouhaha surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is over the firing of a group of U. S. attorneys. Opponents of the administration have accused President Bush of having Gonzales fire the attorneys because they disagree with his policies. The truth is, that is his constitutional right. The president can remove those who disagree with him, and replace them with people who do agree with him. President Clinton did it, and so did first President Bush.

In the private sector, if I worked for a company and was very publicly vocal about my disagreements with company policy and my boss, and made decisions that were contradictory to the companies policies, do you think I would be able to get away with that? No.

The mistake that was made was in how the situation was handled. The attorney general should have been open and up front about why the attorneys were fired. Instead, he was deceptive, and tried to mislead the investigators.

However, Attorney General Gonzales should not lose his job over this. The truth is, there should never have been a Senate investigation to begin with. while the decision to fire the attorneys may have been unpopular, it was not illegal. Had the administration stood up and said that the attorneys were fired for their disagreement with President Bush's policies, the resulting firestorm may have been intense, but it would have been short lived. Instead, the issue continues to drag on, leaving Gonzales in the cross hairs of the president's opponents.

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