D-FENCE

If you needed any sort of indication that Alberto Gonzales broke new ground as Attorney General, your day has come: a legal defense fund has been placed in trust. You know, just in case it comes out that maybe he was doing things he shouldn't have been doing.

The pals putting the defense fund together assure us it isn't because he was up to no good at Justice, or that he's anything less than totally innocent.

David G. Leitch, a Gonzales friend and general counsel at the Ford Motor Co., wrote in an e-mail solicitation to potential contributors last month that Gonzales is "innocent of any wrongdoing" but does not have the means to pay for his legal defense after a career spent mostly in public service.

"In the hyper-politicized atmosphere that has descended on Washington, an innocent man cannot simply trust that the truth will out," Leitch wrote. "He must engage highly competent legal counsel to represent him. That costs money, money that Al Gonzales doesn't have."

The thing I love most about this statement is the description of "the hyper-politicized atmosphere that has descended on Washington." Leitch makes it sound as if everyone was high-fiving and hugging before the 2006 midterms. If you had to lay the blame for the hyperpartisan atmostphere at anyone's feet, wouldn't it be the Republican Party? Wouldn't it be George Bush?

To be fair, there is plenty of suing going on in politics. It happens, and people often kick in for each other for any number of reasons, and in politics (and actually, in business in general) it is how the game is played from time to time. But the need that Bush administration officials have for legal defense funds just feels different. The presumption of necessity is not that they're going to get incessantly sued for strictly political reasons, but rather that they are being investigated because they did something seriously wrong. This isn't about partisan politics, but rather about failed leadership.