Wow, Gonzales Must Really Be In Trouble...

McClatchy newspapers reports that "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales apologized to the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys in a conference call Friday as he tried to hold on to his job amid the scandal over the firings of eight federal prosecutors." A penance conference call? He's really on his last legs.

(I tried my best to recap this whole scandal the other day- here)

What's more is that there is developing new evidence that the U.S. Attorneys were not only ranked by their loyalty to Bush, but that they may have been removed to impede ongoing investigations. For instance, it's now known that the day after San Diego Attorney Carol Lam informed the Justice Department of plans to investigate the just-resigned #3 guy at the CIA (from last May's corruption scandal), Gonzales' now-resigned chief of staff-- Kyle Sampson-- sent the White House an email saying that "the real problem we have right now with Carol Lam that leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires." Similar revelations like that are trickling out.

I'm sure the President wishes he had pulled a Nixon on Patrick Fitzgerald in 2004.

And as much as I would love to believe all the news reports that AG Gonzales' ouster is "inevitable", I'll remain skeptical for now. Yes, the guy who helped the President legalize torture and warrantless wiretapping and turn the Justice Department into a political arm of the Republican Party deserves his comeupance, but he's also one of Bush's oldest cronies from the Texas days (second only to Mr. Rove, who you can bet is still going nowhere). Also, as Andrew Sullivan points out, Bush has no more true loyalists waiting in the wings to replace him, and certainly can't afford a remotely independent official running the Justice Department at this point.

Of course, this story is getting deeper and deeper inside the White House and will eventually reach critical mass. Then the President may have no choice but to sacrifice Gonzales to save others and hope the story dies with him. But we'll see. For now, Gonzales is hanging on.