If you are under investigation by either a prosecutor or Congress, you are an idiot if you don't retain competent counsel to represent your interests, even if you are an attorney. After all, what is the saying about a laywer who represents himself.

No sooner did Alberto Gonzales resign as attorney general last month than he retained a high-powered Washington criminal-defense lawyer to represent him in continuing inquiries by Congress and the Justice Department.

Now that strikes me as a prudent move -- and one certainly contemplated by our Constitution, which enshrines the right to an attorney in the Bill of Rights. Why, then, does the subtitle of the article, which says Gonzales wants to "beat the rap", make it sound like the exercise of that right is somehow suspicious, or an admission of guilt?