So, after today's clubbing of a baby seal testimony by the Attorney General, how is the wingnutosphere taking it?
If their reaction is any guide, either the Kool-Aid has its limits, or the word has gone out that the Attorney General is to be thrown to the wolves. A fitting end, perhaps, to the man Bush nicknamed 'Fredo'.
Over in RedState, they say
Watching this C-SPAN hearing, can we get some recommendations for a new AG?
AGAG just might not make it past the Republicans today. Good grief.
and
I suggest we invoke the Mercy Rule from Little League baseball. That rule is invoked when there is a blowout underway and one team leads by 10 runs after five innings.
and this
Loyal friends are people you have to dinner.
Competent people are the ones you continue to employ.
Bush has a real problem distinguishing between the two. Much to his and the country's dismay. Gonzo shoulda been gonzo when he couldn't seem to get any info about classified info leaks from NSA & CIA. The guy may be the nicest human being on earth, but he is way over his head as AG and needs to go packing.
National Review Online called the testimony "disastrous":
It has been a disastrous morning for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. The major problem with his testimony is that Gonzales maintains, in essence, that he doesn’t know why he fired at least some of the eight dismissed U.S. attorneys. When, under questioning by Republican Sen. Sam Brownback, Gonzales listed the reasons for each firing, it was clear that in a number of cases, he had reconstructed the reason for the dismissal after the fact. He didn’t know why he fired them at the time, other than the action was recommended by senior Justice Department staff.
(though they spent most of today arguing about whether or not VA Tech students were pitiful wimpy cowards for not Doing Something about the gunman)
Captain Ed:
What does all of this mean? It means that Gonzales is toast. One can write off Senators like Specter and Graham, but Tom Coburn is part of the conservative backbone in the Senate. That is a clear message to the White House to start placing ads in the paper for the upcoming opening in senior management.
Even the Freepers are unhappy:
I just don’t think Gonzales is up to this.
If I were in a court case, I would hope Gonzales were opposing counsel. He is pathethic, if this is a representation of his legal capabilities. He is not representing himself nor the post of Attorney General of the US very well.
The panel are using Gonzales’s own words and positions to chew him up and spit him out.
Lunch Menu:
Taco Alberto
Alberto Burrito
Grilled Gonzales with onions
Alberto Taco Salad
Gonzales Chicken Fajitas
Fillet of Gonzales
Alberto Quesadilla
Enchalidas Gonzales
Alberto Gonzales Tostado
I'm torn on this. Gonzales is obviously a boob, and I don't like having an obvious boob in the AG spot, even setting aside this justice department's highly questionable border prosecutions. By the same token, these firings should be a non-issue—though the aforementioned boobness has made them and issue—and I'm loathe to see the democrats handed a victory on it.
The Freepers were sort of half-hearted, though. Their whole live-blog thread garnered 270 posts (I read about half of it), or about 30 minutes worth of live-blogging here.
Some other leading lights of the right-wing blogosphere, such as Malkin and Instapundit, are strangely silent on the issue. Malkin is obsessing (still) about rap lyrics (re: Don Imus), and I'm never sure what Reynolds is babbling about at any given time.
Of course, you can always count on Powerline to support even the most incompetent of Administration officials:
Now, President Bush might well want a more hands on Attorney General, and I certainly would. But unless the decisions made by staff and approved by Gonzales were poor or corrupt ones, I don't think his deference to staff requires his resignation or termination. I've seen no account in which the Senators have made much headway in terms of showing that particular decisions were poor or corrupt.