Politics & Power Quote by Alberto Gonzales

He’s selling “candor” as both a virtue and a shield. Alberto Gonzales’s line lands in that familiar Washington register where transparency is praised precisely when something opaque is happening behind the scenes. By invoking “the lawyers for the United States of America,” he elevates government attorneys into guardians of the national interest, not merely technicians parsing statutes. That framing matters: if these lawyers are cast as patriots first, then their “views” can sound like wisdom rather than ideology, and their decisions can read as necessity rather than choice.

The repetition of “very, very” does rhetorical work, too. It’s not emphasis so much as preemptive insulation: a way to signal urgency while discouraging scrutiny. The phrase “comfortable being very candid” is almost a confession of the real obstacle. The problem isn’t that candor is risky; it’s that the environment is one where candor could be punished - politically, legally, reputationally. In other words, he’s arguing for an internal culture where controversial positions can be voiced without fear, a classic setup for justifying extraordinary legal interpretations.

Then there’s “very sensitive issues affecting the United States,” a catchall that quietly steers the listener toward national security, crisis, and exceptionalism. “Sensitive” implies the details can’t be shared; “affecting the United States” implies the stakes override ordinary constraints. In context, Gonzales’s public role during the post-9/11 era makes the subtext hard to miss: this is a defense of a legal apparatus that wants latitude to argue the unarguable, and to do so under the banner of protecting the country.