When I was in second grade, I forgot my math flashcards at home and Miss Powers gave me a lesson I never forgot. She taught me that no matter how true it was, forgetting was never an acceptable excuse.

The lesson stuck with me, and soon I realized that the reason why it wasn't acceptable was because it meant that whatever was forgotten wasn't a priority.

However, unfortunately for us, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales never took second-grade math with Miss Powers, and we're all the worse off because of it.

Mr. Gonzales has been the subject of much media scrutiny, as he has been implicated in the recent firing of eight U.S. attorneys for what appears to be political reasons. As Mr. Gonzales had been particularly silent on the issue, the U.S. Congress, in order to ascertain the truth, subpoenaed the attorney general before the body to discuss his involvement in the scandal.

During the hearing, Mr. Gonzales was heard multiple times — with a very strong emphasis on "multiple" — explaining how he simply "[does] not recall" meetings that happened just months ago. Rarely would you hear this during any testimony, and you'd certainly hope that the one who was forgetting wasn't the one in charge of the Department of Justice.

Now, Mr. Gonzales has proven throughout his tenure that responsibility and ethics are not the highest of his priorities. Whether he was questioning the expressed writ of habeas corpus in our Constitution or pushing for unconstitutional methods of law enforcement, Mr. Gonzales has proven himself averse to the very system of justice he has sworn to protect.

However, political reasons to oppose Mr. Gonzales aside, in light of what transpired before the committee, he has also given us another reason to oppose him: his incompetence.

Even if we accept that Mr. Gonzales is actually as forgetful as he would like us to believe, how can we, as a democracy, accept his explanations as reasonable for something as politically and legally charged as this situation? The truth is: We can't.

Although the overwhelming likelihood of this is that Mr. Gonzales has willfully fostered a poor recollection of what happened, and if he has actually forgotten major details of a meeting from a few short months ago, our faith in Mr. Gonzales's ability to lead our Department of Justice has to be put into question.

Someone who forgets a major occurrence during a meeting he attended does not deserve to be in charge of one of the most important parts of our government. If it was unacceptable for me to forget flashcards in a second-grade class, it has to be unacceptable for someone to forget something as important as a high-government meeting.

In the likely event that he has chosen to forget details, Mr. Gonzales has to fess up to what transpired and treat Americans with the kind of candor and respect that this administration has proven to be pathologically incapable of doing.

Without this dose of honesty about what actually transpired in those particular meetings, the system that Mr. Gonzales and his cohorts in the White House serve to protect becomes meaningless.

Law is above politics and prejudices, and if the person who is charge of the institution most intimately involved with law does not respect it, our Constitution and legal system have become irrelevant.

Many others have abused politics and law before, but the point is not so much that this administration uniquely abuses it, but still that they are doing it at all. That in itself is unacceptable, and the American people understand and realize this.

For Mr. Gonzales, to answer this problem is rather simple: Either fess up to what happened with the honesty and ethic that the office you serve stands for or resign because of your inability to remember or protect the law you have sworn to protect.

Otherwise, the meaning of the words on the Department of Justice emblem — "Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur" — will be forgotten along with everything else from that one November meeting that Mr. Gonzales just can't seem to recall.

Robert Phansalkar ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in languages and cultures of Asia and political science.