Jon Ralston on a senator from Nevada’s rant on Gonzales

Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007 | 7:17 a.m.

Even over the phone from Reno, where the president was making an appearance, the Nevada senator bristled at George W. Bush's defense of his disgraced and departing attorney general.

Did he agree, I had asked, with the president's description Monday of Alberto Gonzales as a "talented and honorable person � impeded from doing important work because his good name was dragged through the mud." Obviously, he did not.

"No, I do not agree with the president on this one," he said. "I believe Gonzales served him incredibly poorly. It was a dereliction of his duties. He did not serve our president or our country well."

He went on to lambaste Gonzales for shorting the state on its staffing in the U.S. attorney's office, saying it was "completely ridiculous" that Nevada was not given the resources it needs. And he called Gonzales' testimony before Congress, where the nation's highest law enforcement officer continually claimed amnesia, "a complete debacle."

On a roll, the senator also said the administration's plans in Iraq had "failed in so many ways" and essentially sounded like John Edwards when the Democratic hopeful called the war on terror a bumper sticker. He also lambasted the GOP for having "lost its way" and for "holding on to power for power's sake."

It is hardly unusual for Harry Reid to go on such a rant. But the man I was talking to was John Ensign.

Like many Republicans these days, Ensign has struggled with a political atmosphere that grows increasingly toxic for his party. And yet, he steadfastly or stubbornly stood by Gonzales, and he has taken on the stewardship of the National Republican Senatorial Committee when he knows "I could not have picked a worse time."

Is this the same apolitical man who was elected to Congress in 1994 in the vanguard of a new Gingrichian order? Or has he become so imbued with that Potomac virus known as ambition that he is willing to take the helm of the most political organization imaginable?

I wondered about that when I interviewed him Tuesday about his refusal to call for Gonzales' resignation despite the sacking of the man Ensign nominated as U.S. attorney, Daniel Bogden. Reid, it seemed, was more vociferous in defending Bogden and more outraged about his firing than Ensign. Why ? I wondered.

Was it that Ensign still believed that Gonzales was "an incredible choice" for attorney general, as he gushed when he was nominated by Bush almost three years ago? No, Ensign insisted Tuesday.

"I did look at this, all along wondering whether I should go to that step," Ensign said. But he revealed Tuesday that he believed it "wasn't just Dan Bogden," it was about the larger picture of the U.S. attorney's office here and its woeful state.

"If I just called for his resignation , that doesn't get us extra resources," Ensign said. "It would be better for us politically if I did that."

But just as he didn't see it as a moral imperative to publicly eviscerate Gonzales - until now, that is - so, too, Ensign also believes that no one should "prejudge the evaluation at this time" that Gen. David Petraeus will present next month. Although Ensign does criticize the "scattershot" approach by the administration in Iraq, he says he will be constructive as opposed to taking the poll-tested way out. "It would be politically smart for me to go against this thing," he said Tuesday.

Indeed. But the senator also cannot help but parrot the GOP talking points that conflate Iraq with 9/11, as the president continues to do. Even then, though, he has criticism for Bush.

"We have a real bad enemy in this world," Ensign said. "There is a radical form of Islam we need to confront to the world. One of the worst mistakes the president makes is to call this the global war on terror. "

But the critic inside the house is also the leader of the GOP's efforts to save as many Senate seats as possible - a task Ensign wryly noted has become more difficult recently, an allusion to Idaho Sen. Larry Craig's prospects going down the toilet. These days, Ensign must feel schizophrenic.

Indeed, as he navigates his jobs as senator and head of the GOP's political arm in the upper house in a mercurial political environment for Republicans , it will be interesting to see in the next year-plus how much John Ensign sounds like John Ensign and how much he sounds like Harry Reid.