Alberto Gonzales never should have been nominated as U.S. attorney general, let alone serve for 2 1/2 years.

As we wrote in January 2005, Gonzales was too deeply compromised by legal analysis done while he was White House counsel that sought to give the green light to various forms of torture - writing, for example, in January 2002 that the war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners."

Yet in due course Gonzales was confirmed by the Senate, only to spend what seems to have been most of his tenure under fire. Sometimes the criticism was unjust, but occasionally it related to his role in decisions hardly less alarming than his rationale for skirting the Geneva treaties while in the White House.

Indeed, at the end it seemed as if Alberto Gonzales was the last person in Washington to realize that his resignation as U.S. attorney general was both inevitable and overdue.

His credibility with Congress was shot months ago and even fellow Republicans made no secret of their relief at his departure. His testimony before congressional committees had become legalistic to the point of being misleading when it wasn't marked by suspicious memory lapses.

His tenure in recent months had been consumed at times with the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys. This scandal, from our point of view, was never about the fact that these public officials were forced out - they serve at the president's pleasure, after all, and there was never persuasive evidence that the administration was attempting to engineer an obstruction of justice or improper prosecutions. The problem was that Gonzales sullied their reputations after shoving them out the door. He dubbed their performance sub-par but couldn't back up the claim when put to the test.

Gonzales waited until almost the last possible minute to resign, just one week before the Labor Day deadline given senior administration officials to leave or commit to staying for the duration of the Bush presidency.

Like many of Bush's inner circle, he was intensely loyal to the president. And as Gonzales' tenure at the Justice Department crumbled, Bush's reciprocal loyalty was all that sustained him in the job.

And Bush was loyal to a fault. In a statement from Texas, where he had lunch with Gonzales Sunday, the president said his attorney general had been treated unfairly and that it was sad that such a talented and honorable person had his name dragged through the mud.

But White House officials said the president did not try to talk him out of resigning. Gonzales could have spared both of them a great deal of controversy and uncomfortable attention by departing a whole lot sooner. And because he waited so long, it will probably be difficult to find a successor with the necessary stature and credentials to reassure the public and command the respect of Congress.