Success Quote by Daniel Inouye

Inouye’s sentence is a scalpel disguised as a civics lesson: formal, measured, and built to land like a gavel. By anchoring his critique in “questions legitimately posed” and “failure to respond,” he frames the conflict not as partisan theater but as a breach of constitutional choreography. The Senate asked; the nominee dodged; the system hiccuped. That’s the charge.

The key word is “legitimately.” It’s a preemptive strike against the standard escape hatch - that oversight is harassment, that probing questions are political gotchas. Inouye insists the inquiry is lawful and therefore obligatory. The subtext is that Gonzales isn’t merely being evasive; he’s rejecting accountability as a principle. In that light, “grave doubts” reads less like personal disappointment than like institutional alarm. Inouye is speaking as a guardian of process, not a rival on cable news.

Context matters: this was the era when Alberto Gonzales, as George W. Bush’s Attorney General, became entangled in controversies over interrogation memos, surveillance, and the U.S. attorneys firing scandal - all questions of how elastic executive power could become after 9/11. Refusing to answer Congress, in that moment, didn’t look like prudence. It looked like executive branch insulation hardening into impunity.

Even the final phrase, “serve the people of the United States,” is pointed. Inouye is reminding everyone who the Attorney General is supposed to work for. The implication is blunt: an Attorney General who won’t answer to the Senate may already be answering to someone else.