Former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who’s now teaching a class at Texas Tech University, offered students some advice in an article published today in the student newspaper.
“Dream big but be patient,” Gonzales told The Daily Toreador. “You never know when the next George W. Bush is going to come along and give you a once in a lifetime opportunity like he gave me, but you have to be patient.”
Gonzales resigned in September 2007 amid an uproar over allegations that the Bush White House fired U.S. Attorneys for political reasons. He was also portrayed in several books about the Bush administration as a rubber-stamp for controversial national security policies pushed by Vice President Dick Cheney and Cheney’s powerful chief of staff, David Addington, including illegal warrantless surveillance and torture.
“We live in a great country, where the son of a cotton picker can become the attorney general of the United States. It’s a country where dreams still come true,” Gonzales told the student newspaper.
Alberto Gonzales (Getty Image
Texas Tech hired the native Texan this summer to teach a political science course and help recruit minority students. Several professors at the university have come out against his one-year, $100,000 contract. They argued Gonzales shouldn’t have been hired because of his role in Bush-era scandals. He was Attorney General from 2005 to 2007 and before that served as Bush’s White House counsel.
The ex-Attorney General told the newspaper he is open to renewing his teaching contract when it is up next year.
“I’m a component. Hopefully a helpful and useful component,” Gonzales told The Toreador. “We’ll see what happens after a year, you know, the contract may be renewed. If Tech wants me back and I think it’s best for me and my family, it’s something I would certainly consider continuing.”
Gonzales told the newspaper that the students in his junior-level political science seminar, Contemporary Issues in the Executive Branch, were a little shy at first, but they are starting to open up about politics in his class.
He told The Toreador he encourages his students to “press and push convictions and positions.”
“We’re getting into subject areas that are controversial and I have encouraged [the students] to speak out and to not hold back, to come forward and give your opinions,” Gonzales told the newspaper.
