Out Come The Knives

You didn't think that a few brusque words from Alberto Gonzales saying "mistakes were made" and the White House trying to circle the wagons with dubious statements was going to work, did you?

Now John Sununu wants my main man Abu G. out. Boo yah ka shah.

Sen. John Sununu (news, bio, voting record) of New Hampshire on Wednesday became the first Republican in Congress to call for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' dismissal, hours after President Bush expressed confidence in his embattled Cabinet officer.

"I think the president should replace him," Sununu said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Sununu joins Chuck Schumer, Harry Reid, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and a host of others. But Sununu being a Republican, it has the potential to be a dam burst.

By the way, look at this up-is-down quote from Dan Bartlett:

“The White House did not play a specific role in the list of the seven U.S. attorneys,” said Dan Bartlett, Mr. Bush’s counselor, referring to a Justice Department roster of those to be dismissed. But he said the White House, through Ms. Miers’s office, ultimately “signed off on the list.”

We didn't play a specific role, we just specifically signed off on the list.

(shaking head to make jowls move)

What hinted in the above article, however, is that "there’s a serious estrangement between the White House and Alberto now," which, combined with the Sununu announcement, means that the Attorney General will have a short shelf life.

Josh Marshall takes another stab at explaining what this whole thing is about.

(former US Attorney Carol) Lam's firing has always been at the heart of this. I've had a lot of people ask me why we devoted so much virtual ink to this story so early. But the truth is that by rights Lam's dismissal should have sounded alarm bells for everyone on day one.

What people tend to overlook is that for most White Houses, a US attorney involved in such a politically charged and ground-breaking corruption probe would have been untouchable, even if she'd run her office like a madhouse and was offering free twinkies to every illegal who made it across the border. Indeed, when you view the whole context you see that the idea she was fired for immigration enforcement is just laughable on its face. No decision about her tenure could be made without the main issue being that investigation. It's like hearing that Pat Fitzgerald was fired as Plamegate prosecutor for poor deportment or because he was running up too many air miles flying back and forth from Chicago.

Lam's investigation (and allied ones her probe spawned) were uncovering a) serious criminal wrongdoing by major Republican power players on Capitol Hill, b) corruption at the CIA -- which reached back to the Hill, c) and as yet still largely hidden corrupt dealings at the heart of the intelligence operations in the Rumsfeld Pentagon.

Nothing matters unless the investigation gets to the heart of what happened there.

If it does get there, it'll be without Abu Gonzales to guide it.