reality-based educator

...Gonzo:

WASHINGTON -- Support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales sank further Thursday as Democrats proposed a no-confidence vote, a fifth GOP senator called for his resignation and yet another Republican predicted he won't survive a congressional investigation.

...

For all of the administration's defense, several GOP officials acknowledged privately that Republicans were still reeling from testimony this week that Gonzales, when he was Bush's White House counsel, pressured Attorney General John Ashcroft to certify the legality of Bush's controversial eavesdropping program while Ashcroft lay in intensive care.

Asked twice during a news conference Thursday if he personally ordered Gonzales to Ashcroft's hospital room, Bush refused to answer.

"There's a lot of speculation about what happened and what didn't happen. I'm not going to talk about it," Bush said.

James Comey's account to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Schumer said, turned more lawmakers against Gonzales. New criticism came from multiple Republicans.

One, Sen. Norm Coleman of Minnesota, on Thursday became the fifth Republican senator to demand that Gonzales leave.

"I would hope that the attorney general understands that the department is suffering right now, and he does the right thing, and that is allows the president to provide new leadership," Coleman told reporters on a conference call.

And Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., usually a staunch GOP ally, suggested Thursday that Bush consider ejecting Gonzales.

"The president might decide that the current leadership remaining at DOJ is doing more harm than good," Bond told The Associated Press.

Meanwhile, Sen. Arlen Specter, the Judiciary Committee's top Republican, said the Justice Department cannot properly oversee Bush's eavesdropping program with Gonzales at the helm of the agency.

"I have a sense that when we finish our investigation, we may have the conclusion of the tenure of the attorney general," Specter said during a committee hearing. "It'll be clear even to the attorney general and the president that we're looking at a dysfunctional department which is vital to the national welfare."

Chances are Gonzo and Bushie could have ridden out the Prosecutor Purge scandal, but the Comey testimony that Gonzales and Andy Card attempted to get an ill Ashcroft to sign off on an illegal warrentless wiretapping program that Ashcroft and the DOJ had already said was illegal may be the thing that gets him.

I hope so.

And I also hope they keep asking the preznut if he was the one who sent Card and Gonzo to the hospital to pressure Ashcroft to sign off on the program.