Black Box Report

Who will be the unlucky politico to step into 'Fredo's shoes? Will it be......

Michael Chertoff?

Orrin Hatch?

Interim AG Paul Clement?

OK, maybe forget Chertoff...

What about Patrick Fitzgerald?

...yeah, yeah, I know. Maybe James Comey, then?

PROS: Instant credibility with Senate Democrats who view the Republican Comey as a straight-shooter who isn’t afraid to stand up to the White House.

CONS: Instant credibility with Senate Democrats who view the Republican Comey as a straight-shooter who isn’t afraid to stand up to the White House.

......

......

......Joe Lieberman?

Six and a half long years, and some people are still sitting, like Linus in the pumpkin patch, awaiting the arrival of Bush the Uniter. Like the Great Pumpkin, some people are just sure that the man who-as-governor-of-Texas-knew-how-to-reach-across-the-aisle-and-work-with-Democrats will suddenly emerge, serene, and right the wrongs that his incompetenty, unworthy staffers have brought upon his house and the country as a whole. Scooter's commutation and the offers of private, off-record interviews in place of sworn testimony fade away like distant memories, and the eternal optimism of bipartisan compromise dances like sugarplums in the head of sleepy-eyed journalists who dare to dream.

With the recent resignation of his longtime friend and enabler Alberto Gonzales, it's time for a new Attorney General. Will the president pick someone with bipartisan support?

Will he pick a non-divisive nominee who will sail through senate confirmations and begin to restore trust in the Justice Department?

Will pigs fly?

There's simply no reason in the world to believe he's anxious to turn over a new leaf. Bush doesn't want to "salvage his relationship with Capitol Hill"; he wants to smear his critics and bury his enemies. He likes the "partisan tension."

With every re-shuffling of the deck chairs, with each resignation of another scandal-ridden or incompetent staffer, some people still have the optimism that this time, Bush will appoint someone qualified, impartial, a true servant of the public.

Other people, however, have stopped believing in the Tooth Fairy:

Everytime something bad happens with this administration we get new articles saying...Bush now has some great opportunity to do...something less bad...

I used to do this too. I'd wrack my brain trying to think what the best thing for the president to do would be and then I'd write it up as a kind of advice piece. I don't do that anymore. I try to learn from experience.

So what kind of person will Bush appoint? Red State has just the solution: Same car, same engine...but now with racing stripes!

With the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales the President has an opportunity to do something with the justice department. The President needs to appoint someone who believes strongly in the foreign surveillance program, he needs to appoint someone who will go into the justice department, not with a new tone, but someone that will clean house of the endless career bureaucrats that been undermining the administration.

John Cole calls this the radical, outside-the-box-thinking that wins awards:

Why didn’t I think of that? The solution to the problems at Justice is clearly to insert more “yes-men” and some more cronyism. Nevermind, I know why I didn’t think of that. I’m not a blithering idiot.

I think we can safely rule out a Fitzgerald or Comey. Ditto anyone outside the administration, because who wants to leave a cushy job in the private sector to jump on this sinking ship? It won't be someone new, an up-and-comer; they'd either not want the job in the hope of not ruining their young careers, or they'd be so into the kool-aid that they'd never pass the confirmation hearing.

That leaves someone already in, tangentially at least, the administration. Someone who's made their bones; someone who has likely served the president in some past piece of political skullduggery; someone the president can trust to throw themselves on their sword for him, like Gonzales, should the need arise. Someone with a John Roberts veneer of reasonability, but a Bush team player through and through.

In other words, the guy who they've already got his foot in the door:

(Solicitor General and Interim Attroney General Paul Clement)

You might say he's... a conservative. Primarily a legal scholar an attorney in private practice, Clement clerked for two of the most conservative judges in the country, Lawrence Silberman of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. He came to the solicitor-general's office in 2001 as the deputy SG on the strength of serving on John Aschroft's Senate staff, and for helping construct the winning argument in Bush v. Gore.
.......
Indeed, at his Senate confirmation hearing in 2005 to become solicitor general, Clement received high praise from leading Bush-administration inquistor Russ Feingold (D-WI) for his "superb" 2003 defense of Feingold's campaign-finance reform before the Supreme Court. Feingold vouched for Clement's "professionalism and integrity" even when the two men disagreed.
.......
Clement's views of the president's wartime powers appear to be broad. He's argued that the administration can hold American citizens as enemy combatants, without guarantees of trial. (When asked by hyper-conservative Judge J. Michael Luttig if he really was prepared to say the U.S. is a "battlefield" in the war on terrorism, Clement replied, "I can say that, and I can say it boldly.")

Ladies and Gentlemen, my pick prediction for the permanent replacement of Alberto Gonzales.

[UPDATE]

Memories... like the corners of my mind...