WASHINGTON — Alberto Gonzales was a case study in cronyism, a nice guy and presidential pal who became attorney general on the strength of those two credentials.

He was not up to the job.

In the end, Gonzales' greatest achievement may be that he produced a rare note of unanimity among Republicans and Democrats in Washington: They agree his tenure was an unmitigated failure.

"Reasonable people have been saying since the spring that Gonzales should resign, and four months later everybody says this should have happened a long time ago," said Republican consultant Joe Gaylord. "My guess is the close ties to George W. Bush made that impossible."

The attorney general said Monday he was resigning.

Every public service job Gonzales has held he owes to Bush — general counsel to the Texas governor, Texas secretary of state, state Supreme Court justice, White House counsel and finally attorney general.

That debt may have made Gonzales too eager to please his boss, too deferential toward higher-powered Texans like Karl Rove and too dismissive of critics in Congress.

His rapid rise may have left him ill-equipped to manage the huge Justice Department and unseasoned in Washington politics.

Whatever the reason, Gonzales' record of scandal would have more quickly doomed a less-connected public official.

One of his first acts in the White House was to urge Bush to waive anti-torture laws and international treaties that protect prisoners of war. Critics say the policy led to abuses of the type seen at Abu Ghraib.

As the White House's top lawyer, Gonzales notified chief of staff Andy Card after the Justice Department opened an investigation into who revealed a CIA agent's identity. Gonzales waited 12 hours to tell anyone else in the White House, a gap that could have helped aides cover their tracks.

In 2004, Gonzales visited the hospital bed of then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to get the Justice Department's approval of certain intelligence-gathering methods.

Gonzales later denied under oath that he pressured the ailing Ashcroft to recertify the "terrorist surveillance program," testimony contradicted by FBI Director Robert S. Mueller and former Deputy Attorney General James Comey.

As attorney general, he told Congress in 2005 that the president was fully empowered to eavesdrop on Americans without warrants as part of the war on terror.

Under his and Ashcroft's watch, the FBI improperly and, in some cases, illegally obtained personal information about people in the United States.