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WASHINGTON - Sen. Orrin Hatch says Democrats calling for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have a pattern of questioning the competence of ethnic minorities who are conservative Republicans.
"I'm not calling them racist," Hatch said Thursday in an interview with The Salt Lake Tribune. "I don't believe anybody in the Senate is racist. But it certainly is questionable that they treat this man this way.
"What bothers me is that if you have a minority, like [Supreme Court Justice] Clarence Thomas, like Alberto Gonzales, who is conservative, then the other side, who claim they are so civil-rights oriented, they always treat them as though they're just not capable of doing these jobs," Hatch said.
Gonzales is the first Latino to serve as U.S. attorney general. Thomas, who is black, faced tough questioning during confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991 because of alleged sexual harassment of a former colleague, Anita Hill.
Democrats said Hatch's comments were off base.
"Gonzales' ethnicity has nothing to do with the administration's refusal to allow those involved to testify under oath nor with the fact that this administration has a pattern of using our government to reward loyalty, not expertise, and to ignore the facts that refute their narrow ideology," said Democratic National Committee spokesman Luis Miranda.
"What suggests Alberto Gonzales can't do the job are his self-contradictions and the fact he's been contradicted by his own former chief of staff about what he knew and when he knew that U.S. attorneys were being politically pressured and fired over the administration's partisan interests."
Hatch, when asked whether his comments mean Democrats are holding Gonzales to a different standard because of his ethnicity, said he wasn't sure it was "because of his race."
"But I'm just saying it's amazing how often Republican minorities who are conservative are not considered - are not considered as competent as liberal minority people," Hatch said. "Now it's easy to understand, that's why I would not call it racism because I really believe that the Democrats sincerely believe the people who aren't liberal are stupid."
Hatch repeatedly said he was not calling anyone in Congress a racist.
The offices of chairmen of the House and Senate Judiciary committees declined to comment Thursday.
Gonzales is expected to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, on which Hatch sits, on April 17. Gonzales' former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, a native Utahn, testified before the committee last week.
Hatch raised the issue of racial undertones when asked about the investigation into the firing of the U.S. attorneys.
"Here's the highest ranking minority ever to serve in government and to not give some leeway to make some mistakes that [Democrats] would give to their liberal friends, I think that's just wrong," Hatch said.
(Former Secretary of State Colin Powell actually was the highest ranking minority ever, according to the line of presidential succession, when he assumed his role in 2001.)
Lewis Wolfson, professor emeritus at American University, says what's at stake in the U.S. attorneys controversy are "some very serious questions and I'm not sure anyone has acted in that fashion or would act in that fashion" of playing a race card.
"In my experience, politicians who have had to resort to that haven't had good arguments, strong, solid, rational arguments to put out," Wolfson said. "It certainly is not in this case because there's unhappiness among some Republicans, too. It's not necessarily a Democratic thing."