...and the subsequent description of that scene by those who were there, is strongly reminiscent of the kind of thing that happened in Hitler's crew when one of them was ill. There is a scene in Albert Speer's memoirs in which Speer is so sick he's hospitalized, and he has to counter skulduggery from his rivals from his hospital bed.

These guys strike me in exactly the same way. Bush and his people trace straight back to Goebbles and Goering and Bormann and the rest. It's not even a stretch to point it out.

Seems to me this issue is closed. Gonzo will stay. As others have pointed out, Cheney, in particular, remembers what happened when Elliot Richardson, Nixon's AG, resigned over Watergate. That event led directly to the appointment of Archibald Cox as a Special Prosecutor..and the rest is, as they say, history. Not history Cheney is going to repeat.

So, Gonzo will stay, because if he does resign, and Bush does try to appoint another AG, the Senate confirmation process will, inevitably, turn up stuff so malodorous, that Impeachment hearings on the President and Vice-President would be unavoidable, whatever Pelosi says.

It's too much to hope for that Gonzo would resign, or be fired. It seems to me that it's totally in Bush's and Cheney's interest to keep him on, no matter what happens.

Even if Goodling actually says something damning (unlikely, in my view), they'll keep him. The alternatives are all worse, with Dems controlling the Congress, and, thus, the Committee hearings.

I have been hoping, ever since the elections, that methodical, professional investigation, as a matter of routine Congressional practice, is going to turn up so much serious criminal activity, that Pelosi won't be able to deny the opening of Impeachment hearings. The Dems may not want those hearings, but if they keep investigating this Administration, it seems like Impeachment is all but inevitable.

It seems miraculous to me that the hearings haven't begun already. They would have, if not for Democratic political calculations. The evidence is all there. No need to hunt for it, hardly. Lewis Lapham made an entirely compelling case for Impeachment over a year ago. His case is, if anything, strengthened by current events.

The Dems are just cowardly. They want to win in 2008, and they think they'll lose if they impeach Cheney, then Bush. They might. So what? If we *don't* impeach those two, every future President will know he or she can break the law with utter impunity. Is that a good thing?

Indeed. Exactly right.

Mainstream historians will bake and fry this President and his minions as no other President in our history has been baked and fried. I don't have a doubt about it. Hoover is going to look like a Kennedy compared with Bush. In history's cold eye, GW Bush is going to be the biggest loser-boy in the history of the presidency.

At the same time, there will be parallel histories, made in right-wing think-tanks, paid for by rich families with fascist tendencies, that treat Bush as some kind of god. That'll be amusing. Much like the apologias you can still read, about Gen. Douglas Haig, the butcher of Passchendaele. If there is a Hell, Haig is there, for eternity. But not according to some. They are in the minority however.

So it will be with Bush. Some will lie about him. Call him Great. But the consensus is already looking pretty clear: he will be regarded as a fungus on the oak of the Presidency, much like the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, defaced the Catholic Church. Although comparing Bush with Alexander insults the latter. Alexander was actually a pretty smart guy. If utterly corrupt and debauched.

I get that. Dolittle had no charisma, and I figured that would sink her sooner or later. When she sang, as fine as she was technically, she didn't project anything. No *there* there.

But where's the *there* in Blakie boy? It's bad enough that he barely sings better than Elliot Yamin (brother. who was the genius who had that rank amateur come back?), but he doesn't project anything much to speak of, either.

If there's any justice, Sparks will win, and I'm sure she'll have some kind of recording career. But, if Fate is feeling especially sly, Blake will win, and American Idol, finally, won't be able to avoid the label of *fraud.*

You have to love the fact that in nearly every season of *Idol* there has been some confirmation of Barnum's dictum "no-one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public." Truer words were never said.

..is more proof needed that the man is disturbed?

for calling the GOP leadership on their rank hypocrisy. These guys have long since proven they have no shame. I figured they couldn't go any lower long ago. I keep being proven wrong there. This latest two-step is yet one more proof that the GOP is morally bankrupt.

Can we hope that the MSM holds their feet to the fire in the event the Iraqi parliament votes to eject us from the country? Probably not. It'd be nice, though, wouldn't it?

I've been against this war from the beginning, for all the reasons that were eventually proven completely valid. The GOP leadership though...I really wonder how they look themselves in the mirror in the morning.