Today’s edition of quick hits.<\/p>\n
* The latest on Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) being arrested for lewd conduct<\/a> in an airport men’s room.<\/p>\n * Politico<\/a>: “The abrupt departure of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales won’t stop congressional Democrats from pursuing investigations into his tenure at the Justice Department.”<\/p>\n * For quite a while this afternoon, CNN.com treated a football player’s guilty plea in a dog-fighting case as a bigger story<\/a> than the resignation of the Attorney General. When I checked a few hours ago, MSNBC.com was doing the same thing.<\/p>\n * After commenting on Gonzales’ resignation, the president traveled to New Mexico for a private fundraiser on behalf of Sen. Pete Domenici<\/a> (R). Given Domenici’s role in the scandal that ultimately cost Gonzales his job, I can’t help but think there’s a joke in there somewhere. If only The Daily Show wasn’t off this week….<\/p>\n * Most of the GOP presidential hopefuls issued press statements today that were mildly critical of Gonzales, but Giuliani remained silent<\/a>.<\/p>\n * A few years ago, soon-to-be-acting Attorney General Paul Clement was described this way: “He can make the unreasonable sound reasonable<\/a>.” In the Bush administration, that’s unfortunately an important quality to have.<\/p>\n * Red State<\/a> on finding Gonzales’ permanent successor: “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.” Responded John Cole<\/a>: “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.” Obviously. * Kevin Drum does some damn impressive surge blogging<\/a> and summarizes the results: “The conventional wisdom this summer, after a steady round of dog-and-pony shows from the military, says that although political progress in Iraq is nil (or even in reverse), at least we’re finally making some tactical progress on the security front. And maybe we are. But I’m trying to be as honest as I can be here, and it looks to me like the balance of the evidence suggests that this is more hype than reality. As near as I can tell, we’re not making much progress on either front.”<\/p>\n * Senate * Christopher Orr finds someone who answers questions about as well as<\/a> Alberto Gonzales. (For the record, I feel really bad for that poor woman. I’ve had brain-freezes, too, though mine haven’t come on national television.)<\/p>\n
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\n* Awful news from McClatchy<\/a>: “Iraq’s deadly insurgent groups have financed their war against U.S. troops in part with hundreds of thousands of dollars in U.S. rebuilding funds that they’ve extorted from Iraqi contractors in Anbar province. The payments, in return for the insurgents’ allowing supplies to move and construction work to begin, have taken place since the earliest projects in 2003, Iraqi contractors, politicians and interpreters involved with reconstruction efforts said.” (thanks for the tip, R.P.)<\/p>\nMinority<\/strike> Majority Whip Dick Durbin raised the specter of Patrick Fitzgerald<\/a> as the next Attorney General. I have a hunch Bush won’t care for the idea.<\/p>\n