WASHINGTON - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales rebuffed calls for his resignation Tuesday as lawmakers demanded answers about the White House's role in the firing of U.S. attorneys across the country...

Also last week, the administration dealt with the fallout from the federal conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff for Vice President Cheney for lying to FBI agents investigating the disclosure of a CIA operative.

The verdict came as the administration scrambled in the wake of reports of squalid conditions at an outpatient facility at Walter Reed Army Medical Center...

At the Washington-based New America Foundation, Michael Lind, author of "Made in Texas: George W. Bush and the Southern Takeover of American Politics," cautioned against overestimating the damage done to the White House.

Lind is a Bush critic who has said the president's handling of Iraq will relegate him to a list of the five worst U.S. presidents.

"I think that they have more power than you might think because their essential strategy was shaped by people like Cheney and (former Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld and others who were veterans of the Nixon administration," Lind said.

As such, he said, they worked to restore presidential power they believe was unfairly weakened in the post-Watergate era.

"It would be a mistake to underestimate the autonomy of the American president, particularly one who does not have to be re-elected," Lind said. "He is very confident, if not stubborn."

"So when they are caught they may try to get the thing off the news cycle as quickly as possible," Lind said. "But that does not mean they are not doing five other things we don't know about that just haven't been exposed yet..."

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