That’s the question on my mind, too. First Rove bails, now Gonzo? Why is that? Is there some bomb about to go off? Some emails that got into the hands of someone not evil?
Hello? Am I the only one thinking of the hearings, here?
Gonzales resigns. Senate Democrats get to rake the replacement nominee over the coals for all of the lapses, imagined or not, of his predecessor.
Gonzales resigns and Chertoff replaces him. Senate Democarts get to rake the replacement nominee over the coals for all of the lapses, imagined or not, of his predecessor then get to do the same thing to the new Homeland Security nominee. Do you all really think the administration wants some nominee facing 10 days of ‘So how do YOU think Bush fucked up in killing a major American city?’ questions?
The safe money is anyone other than a sitting cabinet official.
Its not like they got a lot of choices here. Either way, its a shit sandwhich, they are reduced to prefering mayonaise over mustard.
An interesting take on the timing of all this, from Talking Points Memo, without which no citizen can hope to be well informed…
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/051656.php
Offered without further comment.
There is, of course, one other possiblity - Bush will simply leave the position open and have the number two guy play AG for the next year.
A few minutes back I thought, “We’ll be able to figure this out when Bush’s presidential papers become available for study someday.” But then I realized that, given this administration’s track record on accountability, when the George Walker Bush Presidential Library and Grill opens for business, the official archives will fit comfortably in a single file cabinet.
Tweeet! Flagrant tu quoque, offense, fifteen yards, loss of down.
The Chertoff issue, btw, would be that it would involve 2 Senate hearings, not 1, neither of which Cheney is in any position to brass a nominee through. The subject matter would be 2, not 1, of the least responsibly managed departments in the administration.
Not really. My intent was not really to establish a moral equivalence between the Dems and the Pubbies, but to say that the attractiveness or turning the federal D.A.s into a partisan tool to be used to overlook election rigging and to selectively prosecute political opponents – which is CLEARLY what Bush and Rove were aiming at – is so great that members of both parties would look long and hard at it. Let’s face it, once you have the people who enforce the law lined up on your side, the laws as written are meaningless – you can do anything you like.
This is clearly Rove’s idea. This is why I hate the man. In part. He has no more respect for the democratic process than Joseph Stalin.
When you can point to any example of the Democrats actually doing it, not just you *imagining * it, please do so. :rolleyes:
Upon further review, the play stands as called.
Unless W decides to nominate Chertoff for AG and leave the secretariat of Homeland Security vacant – and if he did leave it vacant, who would notice?
That’s Bar and Grill. I can’t imagine his place being dry.
I think Chertoff would rather get a prostate exam from Senator Craig than appear in a confirmation hearing. There are way too many things he’d rather not discuss in front of a hostile panel.
I agree with the no current cabinet member theory. Of all the names bandied about, I think Orrin Hatch would be the best choice and would sail right through.
Absolutely. I have no doubt that future historians will remember this decade as the closest the US has ever come to a dictatorship. The scary thing is if they were competent Machiavellians, they might have well succeeded.
Hatch has his Senate seat (and considerable seniority) until 2013. Why would he give that up to be AG for a year and a half?
Beats the crap out of me but the talking heads on TV keep bringing up his name.
Maybe:
Being a Republican, his seniority isn’t worth much now or in the foreseeable future anyway.
He’d be replaced by another Utah Republican anyway.
He’s ready to retire after his current term anyway.
He’s enough of a patriot to want to clean up DOJ, not complete its partisanization.
He has a clean enough public image to look like he’s doing it, too.
He’d be confirmed without a party-damaging fuss.
Then why would Bush even consider him?! 
The Dems have a long history of rigging elections. Think Chicago in 1968. Befo0re the ciil rights movement, the Dems in the South did everything they could, legal and illegal to keep blacks from voting. All that is ancient history, of course. But it does decry the notion that election rigging is stricltly a Pub thing. It’s more of a Pub thing right now because the Pubs don’t have the votes to win elections honestly and they know it — hence Karl Rove.But a swing of the pendulum could easily lead to Dems taking up where Rove has (hopefully) left off.