FredoWatch: Dishonest, or just plain dumb? It's a question Bush observers have asked for quite awhile now:

The accusation that Gonzales has been deceptive in his public remarks has erupted this summer into a full-blown political crisis for the Bush administration, as the beleaguered attorney general struggles repeatedly to explain to Congress the removal of a batch of U.S. attorneys, the wiretapping program and other actions.

In each case, Gonzales has appeared to lawmakers to be shielding uncomfortable facts about the Bush administration's conduct on sensitive matters. A series of misstatements and omissions has come to define his tenure at the helm of the Justice Department and is the central reason that lawmakers in both parties have been trying for months to push him out of his job.

Yet controversy over Gonzales's candor about George W. Bush's conduct or policies has actually dogged him for more than a decade, since he worked for Bush in Texas.

Whether Gonzales has deliberately told untruths or is merely hampered by his memory has been the subject of intense debate among members of Congress, legal scholars and others who have watched him over the years. Some regard his verbal difficulties as a strategic ploy on behalf of a president to whom he owes his career; others see a public official overwhelmed by the magnitude of his responsibilities.

From today's Washington Post. I'm going to go with dishonest on this one. If there's one thing you learn while practicing law, it's that you put everything in writing. That way, if there's ever a dispute later on, you won't get caught making a misstatement of fact to a judge, or have your testimony discredited by someone who has the evidence. Gonzalez isn't just a lying corrupt hack charged with helming the nation's chief law enforcement agency; he is, more unforgivably, incompetent.