People might wonder

By Carol Gee

What is The Reaction of this Texan to the news that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is resigning? His resignation probably will not surprise many of us. It will certainly displease his friends and supporters on the Right, who have become far fewer, by the way. Over here on the Left we will be inordinately pleased. But we are somewhat saddened that it was so long in coming. The Department of Justice, the Peoples' Law Firm, will take some time to recover from its heretofore amazingly inept and partisan leadership.

Many of us felt that Gonzales, having started as the Texas "mouthpiece" for OCP (our current president) since long before they moved to Washington, was only in office because he knew something about OCP that had never been revealed. Given attorney-client privilege, we will perhaps never know what nefarious thing OCP got away with all this time. I jest, because, in all fairness we should not smear by innuendo those who have already done and said enough to disgrace themselves right out in the open.

Reprise this -- Actually I'll just reprint my 8/13/07 Karl Rove resignation post and just change the names. It is still my reaction. Except for this one thing. Gonzales did more harm than Rove did with his political machinations. Because Gonzales ran a department that had more reaching influence over the daily lives of the people of the United States, Karl Rove's political stuff will have less long term effects. This is what I blogged following Rove's resignation.

"Texan coming home... Depending on where you are along the political spectrum, this is either good news or bad news: political junkies woke up this morning and learned that [Attorney General Alberto Gonzales Presidential Political Adviser Karl Rove will be gone from the White house soon. Life handed us Democrats a lemon, and now we can make lemonade. As a Texas Democrat I have bad memories of the Texan [Gonzales] Rove. I would just as soon he stay where he is living now...

What do I think? It will be interesting to see who moves into the vacated office. In some ways OCP (our current president) has made better choices the second time around. Robert Gates replaced Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. Josh Bolton is probably a better chief of staff than his predecessor. Stephen Hadley is probably better at his job, than was Condoleezza Rice. Etc., etc. It would be a very good thing if the same thing happened in this case, but I am not holding my breath.

People might wonder who the next Attorney General will be. I sincerely hope it is not Michael Chertoff. We have a pretty accurate resume to peruse by looking at his recent record at the Department of Homeland Security. Partly because of his lousy performance during Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is now in the midst of its Second Happy Anniversary of the Hurricane. It does not look too good for the taciturn Chertoff. I think the Democrats might put up a fight over his nomination. Actually this is probably a trial balloon that will go psssst! in a day or two. If his is a short stint in the spotlight, it is probably wishful thinking on my part. The Democrats might just cave on this one, too. I would then get to add that one to my growing list.

(Cross-posted at South by Southwest.)