Update: Bush Live Statement: (Not a transcript, just live-blogging.)

Al Gonzales is a man of integrity, decency and principle. I have reluctantly accepted his resignation with appreciation for his service. He has played a critical role in the war on terror, in developing the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. He made enforcement of civil rights laws a top priority. He did great on child sex crimes and in fighting corruption. He played a leading role in selecting Justices Alito and Roberts.

He has become a close friend. He and his family have sacrificed.

After months of unfair treatment, he has decided to resign. It's sad when someone like Gonzales is prevented from doing good work because his good name has been dragged through the mud for political purposes.

Solicitor General Paul Clement will serve as acting AG until a replacement is named and confirmed.

No questions taken. More...

Early names being floated to be Attorney General to replace Alberto Gonzalez, in charge of the massive U.S. Department of Justice, in alphabetical order:

Michael Chertoff, Secretary, Department of Homeland Security

Robert S. Meuller III, Director, FBI

Frances Fragos Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism

The likely ultimate question: Who will unpoliticize the Department of Justice to uphold the rule of law and not be the President's protector? (Sen. Schumer wants a person who will lead DoJ because the top three positions are vacant and the Department has lost all credibility under Gonzalez.)

My take:

We'll be updating reactions to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation as the day goes on. Gonzales' last day will be September 15.

Update: Democratic candidates weigh in.

Update: Charles Schumer's live statement: Touts himself three times for first calling for Gonzales' resignation. Who cares? Says the Justice Department has been in complete disarray. As I've said many times, that's just not the case. Life has gone on as usual in courtrooms all across America. Insists on a replacement that "will uphold the rule of law." A platitude. Says Dems will work with the White House on a replacement, urges them to seek out Dems' advice.

John Edwards: (live interview on CNN)Doesnt' think Chertoff should be the replacement. "We shouldn't replace the person responsible for Guantanamo with the person responsible for the aftermath of Katrina."

Harry Reid: Was never the right man for the job.... He lacked the spine to say no to Karl Rove.

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Matt Yglesias has a great post on how historically ignorant Broderism and its drive for a compromise, issueless pragmatism is. As Yglesais shows, Whiggery led to to the rise of an ideological partisan Third Party - the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln:

I feel like it's worth mentioning here how little time third party enthusiasts ever seem to spend thinking about the rise of the Republican Party -- the only actual precedent for anything of the sort. They often seem to talk as if Abraham Lincoln was just some kind of somewhat disaffected dude sitting around somewhere with this really insightful speech about a how divided against itself, threw his hat in the ring, and -- bam! -- tired old Whig and Democrat ideologies are shunted aside in favor of a bold new era of pragmatism and bloody civil war. One can't do justice to the actual origins of the Republican Party in a blog post, but suffice it to say that it didn't work like that. The history of meaningful third party anti-slavery politics goes back to the abolitionists' Liberty Party in 1840. They later moderated their agenda somewhat, added the support of many breakaway anti-slavery Democrats, and became the Free Soil Party starting in 1848. This party had some very substantial adherents, but still didn't do very well. Then, as the national debate over slavery grew ever-more-intense, breakaway anti-slavery Whigs joined the movement that was now further reconfigured as the Republican Party. This new party did well enough to become a "second party," polling 33 percent while the Whigs got just 21.5 percent.

Matt has written a great concise post that does not, obviously, delve into the complete history of the rise of the Republican Party and the demise of the Whig Party, but I want to explore how Broderism was at the heart of the demise of the Whig Party. To wit, Broder has it backwards - his approach killed a dominant political party and led to an NON-Unity, partisan third party. I'll explore this history on the flip.

U.S. News & World Report writes:

The buzz among top Bushies is that beleaguered Attorney General Alberto Gonzales finally plans to depart and will be replaced by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Why Chertoff? Officials say he's got fans on Capitol Hill, is untouched by the Justice prosecutor scandal, and has more experience than Gonzales did, having served as a federal judge and assistant attorney general.

[Hat tip: Think Progress.]

Chertoff was a federal judge and U.S. Attorney before becoming Homeland Security Secretary. In 2005, the ACLU issued this report on Chertoff and his civil liberties record, and it wasn't pretty. More from a coalition of civil liberties organizations is here.

Guess who was the sole vote against Chertoff's confirmation? Hillary Clinton.

Arianna connects the dots between Karl Rove and the Utah mining disaster.

Coal mining interests have donated more than $12 million to federal candidates since the Bush-era began with the 2000 election cycle, with 88% of that money -- $10.6 million -- going to Republicans.

And what did that largess buy the coal mining industry? Mine safety regulators far more interested in looking out for the financial well-being of mine owners than for the physical well-being of miners.

As "Exhibit A", Arianna points to Richard Stickler, Bush's "mine safety czar":

More:

NYTimes:

The Bush administration, continuing its fight to stop states from expanding the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program, has adopted new standards that would make it much more difficult for New York, California and others to extend coverage to children in middle-income families.

Administration officials outlined the new standards in a letter sent to state health officials on Friday evening, in the middle of a month-long Congressional recess. In interviews, they said the changes were aimed at returning the Children’s Health Insurance Program to its original focus on low-income children and to make sure the program did not become a substitute for private health coverage.

After learning of the new policy, some state officials said today that it could cripple their efforts to cover more children by imposing standards that could not be met.

Alberto Gonzales, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month about his visit to John Ashcroft's hospital bed:

"We would not have sought, nor did we intend to get any approval from General Ashcroft if, in fact, he wasn't fully competent to make that decision."

Does this sound like the description of a man who is competent to decide pressing and complex questions of law and policy?

"Saw AG," [FBI Director] Mueller wrote in his timed log of the events on the evening of March 10, 2004. "Janet Ashcroft in the room. AG is feeble, barely articulate, clearly stressed."

Gonzales groupies will parse the Attorney General's language to argue that a feeble, stressed, and inarticulate hospital patient might still be competent, but the question is not whether Gonzales committed perjury. The question is whether the Senate will continue to tolerate Gonzales' practice of providing misleading testimony. Wouldn't we experience consequences if any of us were to respond so dishonestly to congressional inquiries? Does the AG deserve a continuing pass simply because he's the AG?

Me:

Politics is not a battle for the middle. It is a battle for defining the terms of the political debate. It is a battle to be able to say what is the middle.

Laura Ingraham, via Crooks and Liars:

[N]ot to defend the Daily Kos, when you’re constantly targeting the middle or the moderates as Harold [Ford] called them…it’s pretty tough because the middle is always shifting…it’s shifting to where the left or right is more persuasive. It’s not like the moderates are an identifiable group—-identifiable positions on a number of key issues. They kinda move to either where conservatives or liberals guide them either successfully or not so…I think targeting the middle is a very risky political strategy . . .

The Republican have always known this. The DLC still has not learned this. Harold Ford and the DLC are bad at politics. But so is the Beltway Establishment, the home of Broderism.

Dennis Hastert, formerly Speaker of the House, now an ordinary U.S. Representative, must not be pleased with his humble new position. The Illinois Congressman is expected to announce on Friday that he won't run for reelection.

Who else will take a dive from the sinking ship?

[Rep. Ray] LaHood, who recently announced his own plan to retire, said he believed there would be additional retirement announcements from within the House GOP. “I retired because it was the right time to leave. Others will also be leaving, for their own reasons,” he said.

In April, 2007, Rep. Henry Waxman, Chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, wrote this letter (pdf) to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about the missing RNC e-mails.

[RNC Counsel Rob] Kelner's briefing raised particular concerns about Karl Rove, who according to press reports used his RNC account for 95% of his communications. According to Mr. Kelner, although the hold started in August 2004, the RNC does not have any e-mails prior to 2005 for Mr. Rove. Mr. Kelner did not give any explanation for the e-mails missing from Mr. Rove's account, but he did acknowledge that one possible explanation is that Mr. Rove personally deleted his e-mails from the RNC server.

Mr. Kelner also explained that starting in 2005, the RNC began to treat Mr. Rove's emails in a special fashion. At some point in 2005, the RNC commenced an automatic archive policy for Mr. Rove, but not for any other White House officials. According to Mr. Kelner, this archive policy removed Mr. Rove's ability to personally delete his e-mails from the RNC server.

Mr. Kelner did not provide many details about why this special policy was adopted for Mr. Rove. But he did indicate that one factor was the presence of investigative or discovery requests or other legal concerns. It was unclear from Mr. Kelner's briefing whether the special archiving policy for Mr. Rove was consistently in effect after 2005.

The Committee's investigation page is here (pdf). Susan Ralston's 2007 deposition is here.

Jason at Truthout writes today about the RNC's claim for executive privilege. Also see Scribe's diary from April about possible implications for Rove.

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Peter Baker in the Washington Post quotes Karl Rove :

About a year and a half ago, it became apparent talking to my family that there are things happening, that it was time to go."

Marcy at Empty Wheel has been cataloguing the remaining investigations that could land Rove in hot soup and notes, "we have no clear denial that Rove is leaving because the investigations into his activities may soon bear fruit."

About a year and a half ago puts us at January - March, 2006. Rove had already skirted PlameGate. There was no U.S. Attorney firing investigation going on then, or congressional investigations into politicizing federal agencies. Investigation into missing e-mails weren't that big a deal.

Rove and his wife live in Washington, not Texas. I don't think they own a house in Texas any more, although I think they own one in Florida. They have one child who is off at college. Leaving now to spend more time with the family unless someone in the family is very ill doesn't ring true. We haven't heard about any severe illness.

What Rove did have a year and a half ago, that would worry any family, were big time legal bills from PlameGate. Now that Rove is facing congressional and other inquiries on so many fronts, the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, the improper use of federal agencies for lobbying activities, the RNC E-mails and even the continuation of the Abramoff investigation and possible troubles via former aide Susan Ralston, his legal bills can only be mounting. And his lawyer, Robert Luskin, doesn't come cheap.

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