Politico: White House Has Begun Hunt For Gonzales’ Replacement

According to The Politico, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is now political dead meat:

Republican officials operating at the behest of the White House have begun seeking a possible successor to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, whose support among GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill has collapsed, according to party sources familiar with the discussions.

Among the names floated Monday by administration officials are Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and White House anti-terrorism coordinator Frances Townsend. Former Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson is a White House prospect. So is former solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, but sources were unsure whether he would want the job.

This list is almost as long as the list of people claiming to be the father of Anna Nicole Smith’s baby. But it is instructive: there is now a serious search to come up with someone who a) can replace Gonzales and b) is a proven team player. The latter is NOT surprising; in most administrations the Attorney General has been someone close to the President (JFK even appointed his brother, Bobby, to the post). The Politico piece also has some gems of information that are worth examining:

Republican sources also disclosed that it is now a virtual certainty that Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty, whose incomplete and inaccurate congressional testimony about the prosecutors helped precipitate the crisis, will also resign shortly. Officials were debating whether Gonzales and McNulty should depart at the same time or whether McNulty should go a day or two after Gonzales. Still known as “The Judge” for his service on the Texas Supreme Court, Gonzales is one of the few remaining original Texans who came to Washington with President Bush.

In a sign of Republican despair, GOP political strategists on Capitol Hill said that it is too late for Gonzales’ departure to head off a full-scale Democratic investigation into the motives and timing behind the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.

“Democrats smell blood in the water, and (Gonzales’) resignation won’t stop them,” said a well-connected Republican Senate aide. “And on our side, no one’s going to defend him. All we can do is warn Democrats against overreaching.”

And, indeed, on Hardball just a few minutes ago Democrat Rep Rahm Emanuel, considered by many to be one of the key reasons why the Democrats gained control of the House, pointedly said the REAL issue is NOT how long Gonzales lasts, but the facts surrounding the investigations that the fired Republican prosecutors were investigating. He said the Democrats want to find out what the status of the investigations were when these attorneys were fired and where they are now.

The Politico notes that Gonzales has few friends even among GOPers. The reason: they have questioned his “ideological purity,” and battled him when his name came up as a possible Supreme Court justice:

Now they’re using the controversy over the firing of eight federal prosecutors to take out their pent-up frustrations with how he has handled his leadership at Justice and how the White House has treated Congress.

Complaints range from his handling of immigration cases to his alleged ceding of power in the department to career officials instead of movement conservatives.

A key question that comes up repeatedly with the Bush White House is this: wouldn’t it have been easier and politically smarter to have acted swiftly at the beginning of this controversy? If Gonzales is indeed about to be hurled overboard (to join Harriet Miers who was unceremoniously thrown overboard by White House officials last week when she was blamed for the crisis — a claim that has since vanished), doing it sooner would have cut the political losses. Instead, the White House hung tough until Republicans in Congress made it clear they weren’t going to bat for Gonzales.

Prediction: the cases the fired prosecutors were working on are going to be looked at very carefully in public hearings and, if they were short-circuited, look for huge media coverage…and possibly more political heads to roll.