Watch what you wish for, Montana! You're getting your U.S. attorney back--the latest rat to abandon the sinking ship of AG Idiot Al "The Torture Guy"

"The attorney general is running out of fall guys."
--New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, responding to the news that William W. Mercer is giving up his gig as acting associate attorney general, the no. 3 person in the Justice Department

Rats, of course, are famous for deserting sinking ships. Which becomes a problem when you staff an entire U.S. administration with them. As the rat-brigade exodus from the Bush Justice Department picks up speed, It looks as if there soon won't be anyone left there to play with--or serve as fall guy for--the boss, AG Idiot Al "The Torture Guy" Gonzales.

William Mercer, you may recall, has been holding onto his job as U.S. attorney for Montana while acting as associate attorney general, third in command at the DoJ behind the AG and deputy AG. "Holding onto" the job, you may also recall, is not the same thing as doing the job. In fact, our Bill has been so busy in Washington trampling on federal law and the Constitution, including active participation in the cover-up of the purge of competent U.S. attorneys, that the folks back home--including some testy U.S. judges--have been feeling neglected. As the Washington Post's Dan Eggen reports (on page A4!):

Democrats were most critical of Mercer for spending much of his time in Washington over the past two years rather than in his permanent job as U.S. attorney in Montana. Mercer spent an average of three days a month in Billings, according to testimony. Montana's chief federal judge often criticized Mercer's absences and asked Gonzales to replace him. The attorney general refused and assured the judge in a November 2005 letter that Mercer's appointment was lawful.

On the same day that letter was written, however, Mercer instructed a GOP staff member to insert language into a USA Patriot Act reauthorization bill allowing federal prosecutors to live outside their districts to serve in other jobs, according to documents and interviews. The provision -- which retroactively applied to Mercer's tenure in Washington -- was passed by Congress last year. Lawmakers are considering legislation to repeal the measure.

Well, Montana boys and girls, you're in luck! Your boy is coming home! Back to the job he was already confirmed for, back before anybody knew what a sleazebucket he is (or, perhaps more accurately, in the days when the Republican-controlled Senate didn't care what sleazebuckets Bush appointees were). Days before our Bill was to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee in furtherance of his increasingly dubious struggle for confirmation for this job he's been doing for two years, he packed it in, writing his boss, Idiot Al:

"After much consideration, I have concluded that it is highly unlikely that both the Judiciary Committee and the Senate will take prompt action on my nomination in the near term, if ever."

Once our Bill is back on the job in Billings, perhaps he'll get some more much-deserved attention as part of an official inquiry into the real question about Purge-Gate: What did the Bush-appointed U.S. attorneys who kept their jobs have to do to keep them?