The political news shows Sunday had a constant target: Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said Gonzales should resign because he is placing politics above the law. He cited the FBI’s illegal snooping into people’s private lives and the Justice Department’s firing of federal prosecutors.

Schumer, who is the Senate’s No. 3 Democrat, said Gonzales repeatedly has shown more allegiance to President Bush than to residents’ legal rights since taking the job in early 2005.

“Attorney General Gonzales is a nice man, but he either doesn’t accept or doesn’t understand that he is no longer just the president’s lawyer, but has a higher obligation to the rule of law and the Constitution even when the president should not want it to be so,” Schumer said.

“And so this department has been so political that I think for the sake of the nation, Attorney General Gonzales should step down,” he said.