The other day President Bush defended his embattled Attorney General by saying he “has done nothing wrong.” It is true that he has not been indicted for wrongdoing, but that is not the same as not doing anything wrong.

It is wrong to fire someone without knowing why. Sure, most employers can fire anyone for any or no reason, but on a human level it is just wrong to fire someone without giving them a truthful reason. Employees of McDonald’s are treated better than that. It is wrong to make up a reason that sounds good and stick with it until your own documents are shown to contradict it. It is wrong to wrong to delegate important personnel matters to people you say you trust and then be unsure who is responsible for making decisions you signed off on. It is wrong to raise your right hand and promise to tell the whole truth and then be so poorly prepared that you are unable to give reasonable answers to reasonable questions.

On another matter, it was wrong for Mr. Gonzales (before he was Attorney General) to go to a hospital intensive care ward to try to change the mind of John Ashcroft about warrantless wire taps even though Ashcroft was gravely ill, on morphine, and had signed over his responsibilities to his deputy.

Keeping Mr. Gonzales is the president's call. He can have his yes-man with the poor memory and apparently absent note-taking skills, but he should not try to tell us he has done nothing wrong.