A Bloodbath

Tom Coburn called on Gonzales to resign and he was pretty relentless in his testimony. He is flailing about, trying to say that he was both disconnected enough from the process not to be blamed for it, yet confident enough about the process to say definitively that nothing improper was done.

He's pretty much done, and it's actually getting to be a little painful to watch this. But I think Sen. Feinstein's second round of questioning shows that she wants to get to the facts, whether Gonzales is gone or not. She said that nobody has taken responsibility for coming up with the names to be fired, not Abu G, not Kyle Sampson, not Bill Mercer, not Michael Battle, nobody. Gonzales couldn't answer the question of where the names came from, but the implication is clear. Feinstein suspects that they came from the White House, and that's where this investigation will ultimately lead.

JMM says the same thing:

From the buzz I'm hearing toay, if Alberto Gonzales were a stock, we'd be at that point when those automatic trading halts kicked in because so many people are trying to sell. But let's not get distracted by Alberto Gonzales. He's just a cog. In almost every case, what we're talking about here is Gonzales's willingness to take orders from the White House -- most importantly from Karl Rove and President Bush -- on firing US Attorneys for corrupt purposes and using the Justice Department to suppress Democratic turnout in swing states. Mr. Gonzales is a secondary issue. The real players are in the White House.