IS BUSH WAITING FOR GOP LEADERS TO INVITE THE MOODY BLUES TO PERFORM ON THE SOUTH LAWN BEFORE HE TELLS ABU G THAT IT'S TIME TO MOVE BACK TO TEXAS?

Kiss bye-bye, boys

In 1968 Walter Cronkite went to Vietnam and reported that he had seen the lies, corruption, and stalemate in that war and that it was time for us to go. President Johnson listened to Cronkite's verdict with dismay and real sadness and told an aide, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America." Although Walter Cronkite and The Howdy Doody Show were popular in the same era, there is no newscaster with the moral heft of a Walter Cronkite today and the 2007 version of Howdy Doody... well, he doesn't quite measure up. But Rove, Cheney and Bush must have felt something like what Johnson felt in '68 on Friday when Adam Putnam (R-FL) joined a growing chorus of Republicans clamoring for a quick exit for Bush's incompetent and corrupt Attorney General, Abu Gonzales. If they've lost Adam Putnam, they've lost the brain-dead fringe of right-wing nutcases who always support them on everything, no matter how outrageous and unconstitutional.

It isn't like there is someone in Washington that has just learned that Abu G is incompetent or never knew that his shallow understanding of the U.S. Constitution made him unfit to be a court stenographer or that his supine posture towards power and natural predeliction towards corruption guaranteed that he would be among the worst Attorneys General in American history. No, that was all clear from day one. What happened this week is that it was on teevee and impossible for anyone-- including voters-- to miss.

Little Doody has known for some time that Abu Gonzo needed to be shoved out the door. As Chairman of the House Republican Conference, he's supposed to help build Repugs to get elected, not watch as they are swept out of Congress in disgust. By March he was already seeing the writing on the wall and started gently prodding the White House to kick Gonzales overboard. At a Florida press conference he told reporters "I have been very critical of his actions (in the firing of the U.S. attorneys) and stopped short of calling for his resignation because that is the prerogative of the president. But it is clear he is not as effective as the result of this tornado he is in the middle of."

Yesterday Little Doody, exasperated that gentle prodding wasn't getting him anywhere, conferred with his more cowardly-- but no less concerned-- fellow leaders of the GOP House caucus, and he announced that, basically, Democrats had it right all along: Abu G is unfit to remain Attorney General. Rep. Doody of Florida, "chairman of the Republican conference in the House of Representatives, said it was important for the head of the U.S. Justice Department to have 'unwavering' credibility. 'For the good of the nation, I think it is time for fresh leadership at the Department of Justice,' Putnam said in a brief telephone interview. He said a lack of credibility by the Justice Department chief puts in jeopardy the president's legislative agenda."

Putnam isn't alone among Bush Regime rubber stampers in begging the White House to get Gonzales off the front pages and off the TV screens immediately. "My House colleagues are concerned about the management of the Department of Justice and how this most recent scandal has been handled," Little Doody said-- although he would not say how many of his GOP colleagues are screaming for Gonzales to get the boot. "They recognize the sensitive issues that we all face that involve the Justice Department and know that we do deserve to have the best possible, most open, candid and effective leadership possible at the head of that department."

Republican legislators who abdicated all sense of duty and decency when Bush assumed the presidency and never once questioned any part of his horrific and outrageous agenda-- even the worst right wing ideologues like Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK)-- have now found something to posture about that seperates them from the increasingly disdained and distrusted Bush Regime. Clueless as ever, Bush, hasn't felt enough heat yet to cut the ties that bind. It's still, "Gonzo, you're doin' a great job."

Asked Friday whether Bush was interviewing candidates to succeed Gonzales, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino told reporters, "Not that I'm aware of, no."

She said that Bush had spoken to Gonzales after he testified and that the president was "pleased that the hearing had finally been held."

Perino said Gonzales "continues to have the president's full confidence."

"I can understand there are some people who still don't want to support the attorney general; that is their right. But he has done a fantastic job at the Department of Justice. He is our No. 1 crime fighter," Perino said.

CNN reports that tipsters, anonymous White House insiders, are dismayed over Gonzales' pathetic performance yesterday. Unlike Perino, the public face of the Regime, who is paid to lie and dissimulate, CNN's sources, "involved in administration discussions about Gonzales, said two senior level White House aides who heard the testimony described Gonzales as 'going down in flames,' 'not doing himself any favors,' and 'predictable... 'Everyone's putting their best public face on,' one source said, 'but everyone is discouraged. Everyone is disappointed.'"

After one official-- Rove-- likened watching Abu G's Judiciary Committee hearing to watching someone club a baby seal, most White House movers and shakers moved on to the next topic: finding a successor for the DoJ. Although Utah's conniving and unscupulous Orrin Hatch has been angling for the job, many inside the Regime say the last thing they need is an egomaniac to follow Abu. "One name that consistently comes up is Ted Olson, former solicitor general. Olson is seen as having the experience, reputation and credibility needed to steer the department for the next year and a half, through the end of Bush's term." The fact that he's a vicious far right partisan deters no one at all.

Now, as promised, ladies and gentlemen, the fabulous Moody Blues:



And if the Moody Blues don't work? It's unlikely Renzi or Domenici would do it but maybe Rosa De Lauro, Pete DeFazio and Frank Pallone could invite Sarah Brightman and Andrea Bocelli?


UPDATE: BUSH AIN'T GIVIN' UP HIS ABU NO MATTER WHAT SOME HOWDY DOODY-LOOKIN' LITTLE NIMROD™ SAYS

Today's WAPO has a funny story by Dan Eggan and Peter Baker about the disarray in the White House over the Abu Gonzo disaster. Rove and all the other snakes are telling Bush to kick his ass out but Bush takes it as a personal affront to his authority, sort of like Eric Cartman, and has dug in his heels. Rove is putting it out there that Bush wants Abu to just resign quietly on his own and take the onus off his poor commander-in-chief shoulders. Apparently, though, Gonzales is living in Never-Never Land and thinks everything's coming up roses.

But in this case, according to Republican strategists, Bush faces the choice of leaving in place a law enforcement chief who has undermined his effectiveness in his department and on Capitol Hill, or reversing gears in the coming days and weeks if the political situation continues to deteriorate.

"Everybody at the White House... all think he needs to go, but the president doesn't," said a Republican who consulted the Bush team yesterday. Another White House ally said Bush and Gonzales are ignoring reality: "They're the only two people on the planet Earth who don't see it." A third Republican intimately familiar with sentiment inside the White House said the hope is that Gonzales will leave on his own. "At some point, he'll figure out that it's not a sustainable situation," the Republican said.

UPDATE: CAN ABU G DO TO THE BUSH REGIME WHAT HE DID TO THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT?

Former federal prosecuter Elizabeth de la Vega (with over 20 years at the DoJ) has a question, one that will be answered before May flowers bloom. She wants to know if Gonzo will "be pushed over the side, take a dive off the plank or simply hang onto the railing of the wreck the Bush administration has made of the Department of Justice." No one can rationally dispute his unfitness for public service. "Certainly, Gonzales is unfit to be the nation's chief law enforcement officer. We knew that before he testified on April 19. We knew that before he was even confirmed. No one who signs off on tortured legal memos authorizing torture, kidnapping and illegal detentions is fit to be the attorney general of the United States."

After his catastrophic televised non-testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee-- likened to watching a baby seal being clubbed by "someone" in Rove's office-- Abu G is trying to keep a low profile. He wasn't on any of the Sunday talking heads shows to defend... the indefensible. And at last night's White House Correspondant's Association Dinner-- while Sheryl Crow and Laurie David tried explaining to Karl Rove works for us, not the other way round-- Gonzo sat quietly, still stunned from his clubbing, at the USA Today table, refusing to talk with anyone beyond, "I am enjoying my meal, it is great to be here. I am enjoying myself.”