Alberto Adds Insult to Injury
George Will offers this great insight into Alberto Gonzales's departure:
And speaking of the tone-deaf, Alberto Gonzales could not even leave high office without advertising his unfitness for it. As he habitually has done, he reminded the nation that he has "lived the American Dream," which he evidently thinks is epitomized by his success in attaching himself to a politician not known for demanding quality in assistants. Gonzales then demonstrated how uncomprehending he is of essential American values. He said: "Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father's best days."Well. His father married and had eight children—nine wonderful days, days even better, one would have thought, than any of the days his son spent floundering at the Justice Department. Furthermore, Gonzales's father had the fulfillment of a lifetime spent providing for his family. But what is any of that, Gonzales implies, compared with the satisfaction of occupying, however unsatisfactorily, a high office? This implicit disparagement of his father's life of responsibility and self-sufficiency turns conservatism inside out. It is going to take conservatism a while to recuperate from becoming associated with such people.
One could argue that Will is taking Gonzales overly literally, but I think his broader point stands: Today's GOP has a tendency to promote worldly success, political prominence, and wealth as the markers of a good life. This is, to be sure, a mindset that infects our entire culture, but one that you would expect people who call themselves conservative to stand against.
H/T Mark Shea.
A poor man raising 8 kids might have been happy for at least the 8 days of their births, but if Gonzales knows that his father had to struggle to provide for them, to fulfill some sort of conservative ideal as having as many kids as "god gives you," i.e., birth control not allowed, I think in this case "Gonzales knows best."
And I'd sure hate to be that mother -- virtually always fat, pregnant and barefoot in the kitchen with all those kids, her poor body sagging inside and out. That is not a pretty picture, and it often requires reconstructive surgery.
If that's your conservative ideal, Chris, instead of some rational balance between tons of kids in poverty and material comfort, your views of the conservative ideal sure aren't going to win any votes.