We're so sorry, Uncle Albert

Okay, not really.

Yes, after months of speculation and near-universal condemnation, Alberto Gonzales has finally resigned as Attorney General. And here we were just writing about him yesterday. Has the mighty BBP already claimed its first victim? Well, we'd love to take credit, but it probably has a bit more to do with all those dastardly politicians who "dragged [Gonzales] through the mud", as Bush so righteously put it. You know, dirty-trick Democrats like Arlen Specter and Lindsey Graham and...oh, wait.

Yes, though we can all be glad to see Gonzo go, it's a little hard to see this as the dawn of good governance, the beginning of a complete scrub-down, if you will, of our old buddy, Mr. Politic. Indeed, it is a testament to the sheer steadfastness of Bush et al. (get it, "al"?) in their corruption that Gonzales was able to hang on for so long. After months of congressional testimony detailing that he was either a) incredibly stupid, such that he couldn't remember major meetings and decisions; b) a bald-faced liar; or, most probably, c) some mixture of the two, it is only now, after the (bi-partisan) chorus of calls for his resignation had grown almost deafening that he has finally gotten the axe (or did he fall on his sword, as Bush claims?; it's so hard to tell with these things). And so, it is hard to take this as a sign of general improvement, except perhaps to think (but how many times have we thought so before?) that we have seen and just ascended from the nadir of Bush's presidency.

In any case, we can reasonably hope that the replacement will be better, if only because the Dems won't let Bush appoint someone too awful (like his butler, or Barney, perhaps). But better than utterly unqualified won't be saying much, and, after all, chances are it will be a lawyer of some sort.