Andrew Cohen, at Bench Conference notes, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales “has achieved in just a few years what many legal scholars and court watchers had presumed impossible: he has made his predecessor, John Ashcroft, seem studious, grave and competent.”
To which I would add, Gonzales makes Aschcroft look non-political too. (I'm thinking of this abusive purge of key US Attorneys — replaced with loyal partisans.)
Worst AG of the past 100 years? It's a fierce competition. Consider John Mitchell and Ed Meese for starters. But there are also a number of great ones on the list.
And some real scum.
I don’t think Gonzales can match the raw malevolence of Mitchell (at this stage of his career at any rate). He strikes me, like so many of W’s coterie, as rather a lightweight. Still, his recent riff on habeas corpus has to qualify him as at least a candidate for worst ever.