Bond suggests Gonzales doing more harm than good

WASHINGTON -- Missouri Sen. Kit Bond, usually a staunch defender of the Bush administration, suggested Thursday that the White House might consider parting ways with embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

"The president might decide that the current leadership remaining at DOJ is doing more harm than good," Bond said.

While he stopped short of calling for Gonzales' resignation, Bond joined a growing chorus of skeptics questioning whether Gonzales should remain in office.

Four other GOP senators are calling for Gonzales' resignation, while Democrats proposed a no-confidence vote. Those Republican senators calling for him to quit include Norm Coleman of Minnesota, John McCain of Arizona, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.

Already reeling from a congressional investigation into whether the Justice Department had a political agenda in targeting U.S. attorneys for replacement, Gonzales took more lumps this week after testimony about his conduct in 2004 when he was President Bush's White House counsel.

Jim Comey, the former No. 2 official at the Justice Department, said Gonzales went to the hospital room of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, who was critically ill, to pressure the ailing man to approve the legality of Bush's warrantless wiretapping program. Ashcroft rebuffed Gonzales, Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat and former prosecutor, was among the first senators to call for Gonzales to resign.

"I would obviously express no confidence since I did weeks ago, but I'm not sure it's going to do any good," McCaskill said. "It looks to me that he's taken the stubborn pills that they seem to be dispensing over at the White House."