http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070423/ap_ ... _interview

WASHINGTON - Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee on Monday called Alberto Gonzales a "major distraction" for
President Bush and the GOP, and suggested the attorney general voluntarily step down.

The former Arkansas governor also left open the possibility that, if elected, he would increase the number of U.S. troops in
Iraq and change the
Pentagon's policy on gay service members, although he insisted he would take his cues from military commanders on both fronts.

In an interview with Associated Press reporters and editors, Huckabee deferred to Bush on whether to fire Gonzales even as the candidate implied that the country's top law enforcement official should leave the post on his own given the furor over the dismissals of eight federal prosecutors.

"Sometimes the best position would be for the appointee to make the decision and not force the president to do so. You best serve the person you work for when you can decide that if you are a distraction that you no longer will create that level of problem for your boss," he said.

"The attorney general is clearly creating a major distraction for the president and for the administration and for the Republican Party," Huckabee said.

He spoke shortly after Bush gave Gonzales a strong vote of confidence and a few hours before the attorney general himself vowed to remain in his post despite bipartisan criticism of his leadership. At a contentious Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Gonzales claimed dozens of times that he couldn't recall key details about the firings or about a meeting that records show he attended.

As the man who oversaw a state, Huckabee said there comes a point, as a chief executive, when "you need to start asking is this becoming a large distraction that's keeping us from doing the important things that we need to be getting done."

"It seems that a growing number of Republicans in Congress say, yes, it is a distraction," he said. "For reasons I don't fully understand, the president hasn't quite seen it that way yet."

Although Huckabee couched his comments, he took a harder line than other Republicans in the presidential race, including former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney who would only say Gonzales should be ousted if he interfered with a prosecution. One potential Republican rival, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, on Sunday reiterated his call for Gonzales to resign.

On Iraq, Huckabee said that as president, he would listen more to U.S. military commanders to determine "what will it take to get those results where we can bring our troops home and be done with this" and whether "we need to put more force, or we need to take force out or we need to get out altogether."

Asked if he'd be amenable to a response from commanders that they needed to boost troop levels up to 500,000, Huckabee said: "I don't know if I'd be OK with it, but I'd darn gone sure listen."

Huckabee also said he would "leave it up to the military and let their recommendation stand" on whether to keep in place the so-called don't ask, don't tell policy that bans gays from openly serving in the armed forces.

"I'm not sure that being homosexual should automatically disqualify a person from the military. If a person can do his or her job, you know that's not for me the biggest issue," Huckabee said.

He also:

_Called restrictions on gun ownership appropriate for people who "have a true clinical verifiable history" of mental illness. However, he said it's difficult to determine what the specific guidelines should be.

_Defended tax increases that occurred on his watch in Arkansas and stopped short of pledging not to raise taxes as president, given potential unforeseen calamities. Still, he called raising marginal tax rates "a last resort."

_Said that absent a power of attorney, the lesbian partner of a childbearing woman should not automatically have equal parental rights. "It's a step toward changing the definition of marriage and family," he said, which he said he opposes.