CURTAINS FOR ABU GONZALES MANANA?

Abu Gonzo wants to keep his job; where's he going to get another one? You probably read that pathetic work of deception under his byline at the Washington Post yesterday. Today-- one day before his showdown with the Senate Judiciary Committee-- he's offering "a measured apology," which has got to be another one of those Republican ruses like when you get caught and "take responsibility" as a way to escape all consequences for what you got caught doing. Today's NY Times has the prepared testimony he plans to deliver to the Senate tomorrow, claiming he "has nothing to hide." He says Kyle Sampson was delegated everything and he didn't know anything.

The OpEd and the written statement didn't go over that well among the senators who will be questioning him tomorrow. Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on the committee, called the Post OpEd "Pablum. I'm looking for facts... In his testimony before the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Gonzales is going to have to be much more specific in answering questions about exactly what role he played, and explain, as best he knows, his understanding of the rationale behind the dismissal of individual prosecutors."

And the Democrats we're any more cuddly. The committee Chairman, Patrick Leahy pointed out that Gonzo's written testimony was just "another in a series of contradictory statements about the mass firing of U.S. attorneys." Chuck Schumer, who's already suggested that Gonzales resign, said the statement "does not advance his cause at all," and that his answers on Tuesday "will be make or break for him."

Meanwhile late last night the Post broke a story claiming that Michael Battle, former director of the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys, told congressional investigators that, Gonzales is being less than truthful when he claims the fired U.S. Attorneys has performance problems; they didn't. He also testified that Gonzales was present at a November 27 meeting where a written memo was distributed regarding the firings. Gonzales has claimed that "he never saw any documents about the firings and that he had 'lost confidence' in the prosecutors because of performance problems."

Gonzales and his deputy, Paul J. McNulty, initially told Congress that the firings were due to "performance-related" problems. Subsequent e-mails and other documents released by Justice showed that most had positive job reviews, that they and other U.S. attorneys were ranked on whether they were "loyal Bushies," and that Gonzales was more deeply involved in the process than he has sometimes acknowledged.

The statements by Battle, who left his job last month, are the first details to emerge from more than 20 hours of interviews with four top Gonzales aides over the past two weeks by staff members on the House and Senate Judiciary committees. The last of those interviews was conducted yesterday with Sampson, who testified publicly last month that he was only an "aggregator" of information on the firings and that ultimate responsibility rested with Gonzales.

Battle told investigators that he was "not aware of performance problems with respect to several" of the prosecutors when he called to fire them, Schumer said in a conference call with reporters yesterday.

It's not like when Cheney shot his friend in the face with a shotgun but this looks like a smoking gun to me.


UPDATE: MORE RIGHT WINGERS CALL ON BUSH TO DUMP GONZALES

According to the new Time a gaggle of influential wingnuts are urging Bush to get rid of Abu Gonzo. They wrote him a letter which "goes well beyond the U.S. attorneys controversy and details other alleged failings by Gonzales. "Mr. Gonzales has presided over an unprecedented crippling of the Constitution's time-honored checks and balances," it declares. "He has brought rule of law into disrepute, and debased honesty as the coin of the realm." Alluding to ongoing scandal, it notes: "He has engendered the suspicion that partisan politics trumps evenhanded law enforcement in the Department of Justice." The letter concludes by saying, "Attorney General Gonzales has proven an unsuitable steward of the law and should resign for the good of the country... The President should accept the resignation, and set a standard to which the wise and honest might repair in nominating a successor..."

Among the rightist loons and maniacs signing it are "Bruce Fein, a former senior official in the Reagan Justice Department, who has worked frequently with current Administration and the Republican National Committee to promote Bush's court nominees; David Keene, chairman of the influential American Conservative Union, one of the nation's oldest and largest grassroots conservative groups, Richard Viguerie, a well-known GOP direct mail expert and fundraiser, Bob Barr, the former Republican congressman from Georgia and free speech advocate, as well as John Whitehead, head of the Rutherford Institute, a conservative non-forit active in fighting for what it calls religious freedoms."