Rove; Gonzales

MSNBC asks:

By the way, who had Gonzales staying longer than Rove in their White House staffing exodus office pool?

Well, since you bring it up...

Karl Rove will go before Gonzales goes. Rove's scalp is the only thing that could conceivably get the heat off of Gonzales and Bush. In fact, it would not surprise me if, at some point in the next few months, Rove cops to some non-criminal form of culpability in the scandal, announces that he is resigning to spend more time with his best friend Rhett Hard, and accepts a teaching job as George B. Cortelyou Endowed Chair and Professor of Political Science at Regent University. At this stage of the game, Bush can afford to lose Rove much more than he can afford to have an independent attorney general who is committed to the rule of law.

Granted, Rove is not leaving under the cloud of an indictment or a guilty plea, but it has been clear for some time that Bush doesn't really need him around anymore. There are no more races to win, at least for Bush, and Rove proved last year that his legendary "genius" is nothing of the sort. He's just a GOP operative whose main talent lies in his willingness to engage in any degree of thuggery to win a political campaign. The problem is that it only gets you so far, and eventually, people expect you to be able to govern. Republicans are incapable of doing that because they don't believe in government. So in 2006, the American people turned the bums out. Rove leaves public service with his dreams of a permanent Republican majority in tatters, and he has his own narrow, short-sighted strategic vision to blame.

Gonzales, meanwhile, earns the title of Last Apparatchik Standing because he is the one Bush truly needs right now. The last thing the president can afford is an attorney general who believes in the rule of law, and if Abu G. leaves the building, there is no way that Bush will get another lickspittle A.G. confirmed by the senate. Unless, that is, Bush kicks Fredo to the curb in the next few weeks and issues a recess appointment for his replacement. That's the only way Gonzales leaves office prior to January 20, 2009.