THE IRONY! THE IRONY! JERRY LEWIS SAID HE WOULDN'T GO DOWN ALONE, SO THEY FIRED CAROL LAM... & NOW KYLE SAMPSON SAYS HE'S NOT GOING DOWN ALONE EITHER

Tomorrow's New York Times has an ominous-- ominous for the Regime-- article about how Gonzales' fired chief of staff has no intention of being the fall guy for the Bush Regime on the politicization of the entire justice system of the United States. His lawyer, Brad Berenson, warned: "Kyle did not resign because he had misled anyone at the Justice Department or withheld information concerning the replacement of the U.S. Attorneys. The fact that the White House and Justice Department had been discussing this subject since the election was well known to a number of other senior officials at the department, including others who were involved in preparing the department’s testimony to Congress."

As the always perceptive Julia from Sisyphus Shrugged mentioned to me, "they just don't make Republican fall guys the way they used to." And Berenson is more than just some over-priced Washington shyster hustling to be part of the growing cottage industry of defending an ever-expanding array of Republicrooks being hauled before the bar of Justice. His last job as an associate counsel to... Gonzales, when he was Bush's White House attorney.

But don't start feeling sorry for Sampson. He's a vicious little monster who's badly in need of a silver stake. He was the GOP choice for replacing Rove as Lord High Executioner. According to Al Kamen in the Washington Post the Republicans have been grooming ole Kyle-- who even looks a little something like that the fat-faced Rove. "...there had been much concern last week that he [Rove] also might have to resign as a result of Fitzgerald's probe. The loss of Karl's familiar presence-- he's the last of the original "Iron Triangle" of Bush's Texas advisers still in the White House-- would have unsettled many younger aides. Fortunately, there's a ready replacement: D. Kyle Sampson, chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and formerly in the White House counsel's office. Maybe not exactly the same as Karl but..."

Libby Spencer over at The Impolitic scrutinizes and dissects the Regime's maneuvers to try to keep Gonzales, not to mention Rove, from having to resign. Sheryl Gay Stolberg tried to do the same thing at the New York Times, just not as well.

On a day when the main figure in another scandal, Valerie Wilson, was all over the airwaves with her testimony before a House oversight committee, the controversy over the prosecutors was yet another reminder for the Bush administration of the harsh realities of life under a Democratic Congress. Mr. Rove was at the center of that scandal as well, leaving some Republicans saying they feel as if they have seen this movie before.

With Mr. Bush looking more like a lame duck, Republicans are also concerned that the news coverage devoted to the prosecutors is taking up valuable time. Mr. Bush could not escape the issue on his trip to Latin America-- he wound up explaining his own role in the dismissals and proclaiming his confidence in Mr. Gonzales during a press conference in Mexico-- and now that he is back, the White House is in full damage-control mode.

“Every news day is valuable; you’d rather be on offense than defense,” Charlie Black, a Republican strategist close to the White House said Friday. “There’s some good news out of Iraq this week, and it’s getting relegated to A10.”

Republicans say that is unlikely to change in the immediate future. With the White House delaying until next week a decision on Mr. Rove’s testimony and pressure continuing to build for Mr. Gonzales to resign, the issue is likely to dominate the Sunday talk shows. For now, the best Mr. Bush’s aides can hope for is a quiet weekend for the president at Camp David.

But the trip got off to a rocky start; Mr. Bush’s motorcade got into a minor accident on the way.

But they can spin and maneuver all they want; the public has already figured out that it was all about politicizing the Department of Justice, something a new Newsweek Poll shows that nearly 60% of Americans believe. "Fifty-eight percent of those surveyed–including 45 percent of Republicans–say the ouster of the federal prosecutors was driven by political concerns. Those attitudes seem to reflect a broader view of the Bush administration’s approach. When asked if the administration has introduced politics into too many areas of government, 47 percent said they agree."