Gonzales on his way out?

Apparently Hip Hop Lawyer's campaign to rid our government of the scourge known as Mr. Alberto "Judge" Gonzales is having an effect.

Ok, well, maybe this blog doesn't have a whole lot to do with it given that its current readership can be optimistically estimated at, um, 4, said (lack of) readership probably being at least partially attributable to the many long and boring posts on the topic of Mr. Alberto "Judge" Gonzales. But in any event, the scuttlebutt is that his shameful tenure is rapidly nearing its end. (If you click that link (from washingtonpost.com), scroll down to the "death watch" heading.)

The current Google News main link on this story returns 2,648 news articles. That, my friends, is a lot of press coverage. The only negative I can find in this situation is that his ouster comes more as a result of the U.S. Attorney firings (political cronyism in the Bush administration? ho-fucking-hum) than because of his reprehensible conduct in the realm of civil and human rights. But, don't look a gift horse in the mouth, as they say.

There's a lot of very astute reporting and comment on this issue, but I recommend Andrew Cohen's five part series in the Washington Post. This scathing rebuke of our exalted A.G. doesn't spend a lot of time on the U.S. Attorney debacle, but focuses a lot more on the many, many other things he has done to harm this country.

There's also an absolutely searing portrayal of Gonzales' time as Texas A.G. from Salon during the run-up to his confirmation. Apparently, the "Judge" (he calls himself this, and demands that his underlings use this honorific, because he was once a Bush appointee to the Texas Supreme Court) was in charge of reviewing death row clemency petitions and recommending (um, or not) which ones should be granted by Bush. The "Judge" performed this function in 57 cases, and out of those 57, a grand total of zero were granted clemency. According to the author, "Gonzales' execution summaries repeatedly failed to mention the most salient claims of defendants", and were "so shabby they seemed intended solely to make it easy for Bush to send prisoners to their deaths."

What a guy, huh? Hopefully he will be disbarred soon after he's fired.