Alberto Gonzales, fresh from his trip to Iraq, is headed to....Harbor Springs, MI.

He'll be conducting a press conference and meeting there with "Michigan's Twelve Sovereign Indian Nations Leaders to discuss efforts to combat violent crime in Indian Country."

A skeptic might say they don't want Gonzales in Washington or anywhere near the Justice Department.

Kevin Drum writes:

Instant analysis: It doesn't really matter. History will judge Rove a colossal failure, a man who never understood how to govern and, for all his immense knowledge of polls and politics, never really understood the times he lived in. It was 9/11 that both made and broke the Bush presidency, not some kind of mystical McKinley-esque realignment. Rove was blind to that, and blind to the way Bush should have governed after 9/11. His one-track mind, in which every problem is solved by wielding the biggest, nastiest partisan club you can lift, just couldn't adapt. . . .

(Emphasis supplied.) What was Karl Rove's job? It was to win elections and expand Republican control. Until 2006, Karl Rove was spectacularly successful, especially considering the weak government he was working with. Karl Rove did not decide to invade Iraq, but he used Iraq in 2002 to further Republican control. That was his job. It was a job that should not have existed. But Republicans believed that using national security issues to expand political control is fine.

Iraq has led to the downfall of Bush and the Republicans. Rove did not decide that. More.

Karl Rove is leaving the Bush Administration at the end of the month. He needs some more family time.

Update: Christy live blogs the Bush-Rove Press Conference.

Reaction from Joseph Wilson (received by e-mail):

“Karl Rove’s resignation signals the final chapter in the Bush administration's betrayal of the identity of a covert CIA officer. When this breach of national security occurred, the President promised the American people that anybody in his administration responsible for the leak would be removed. Rove, identified by the prosecutors as one of the leakers, not only was not summarily dismissed, but has been allowed to leave on his own terms, to praise from the President. This sordid tale of compromising national security to cover-up and distract from the false rationale for the invasion of Iraq will forever remain in history a black mark on the Bush presidency”

Update: Arianna weighs in.

Update (TL): Crooks and Liars has the video.

***

I just finished watching the Meet the Press debate between Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas and DLC Chairman Harold Ford, Jr. and they both acquitted themselves admirably.

The theme of the program was much more unites the DLC and the Netroots than separates them. I think that is true. So what are the differences? Kos laid them out eloquently - it is a question of not being afraid to tout Democratic values. Kos argues for contrast with Republicans. The DLC has in the past argued for blurring distinctions. Today, Ford appeared to be abandoning his objection to contrast with Republicans.

But, while both performed well, I thought Kos was outstanding. Obviously I think he has the better case to make. I was especially impressed by his explanation that he understands that not all Democrats in the country can, or even should, adopt liberal orthodoxy on all issues. I have known this about him of course (like him, I have railed against single issue groups that support GOP incumbents over better Democrats on their issues, see NARAL and Linc Chafee), but his explanation on MTP was an excellent one. It is a much misunderstood insight. I have written about it in the past:

Via Kos, Harold Ford finds himself the new darling of the WSJ Ed Board:

Mr. Ford, for his part, has dark warnings for those activists selling the line that last year's election is proof that their liberal ideas are now "mainstream" . . . "That's called short-term memory," he says . . .

Perhaps Harold Ford has forgotten that he lost his race in 2006 in a big Dem year. Or perhaps he is as ignorant as the WSJ regarding the 2006 election:

Via Newshounds' Ellen, reason number 257,000 why the DLC has become irrelevant:

Alan Colmes said, “I think Barack Obama had a great point when he said that those who voted for the war in Iraq and then had to apologize for that vote should probably be the last people to criticize he who was right about the war in Iraq all along.”

Ford’s responded, “Well, I don’t know who’s been right about this war all along.”

“Oh, sure you do,” Colmes said. Then, sounding flabbergasted, he added, “You don’t know who’s been right about the war all along?”

Harold Ford does not know who got it right on Iraq. Perhaps that explains this statement:

Bush's contempt for Congress:

Bush got angry over a question about whether embattled Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should be held accountable. Members of Congress from both parties have called Gonzales' credibility and leadership of the Justice Department into question after congressional testimony on a number of issues. "Why would I hold somebody accountable who's done nothing wrong?" the president said, then turning the issue back on the Democratic-led Congress. "Matter of fact, I would hope Congress would become more prone to deliver pieces of legislation that matter rather than being the investigative body," he added.

But of course, Dear Leader. As you wish.

Bill Clinton once said:

"The main idea here is still the old idea of the American dream ... that if you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to have a decent life and a chance for your children to have a better one, " he said.

There has been a fair amount of talk about the demise of the DLC of late. Ed Kilgore's take, cited by Joe Klein, whose column was all wrong on the subject, is a good one. But Ed ignores the political problem with the DLC - its incessant attack on Democratic partisanship. Today in WaPo, DLC Chairman Harold Ford, Jr. co-authors a column that exemplifies precisely what is wrong with the DLC philosophy. Instead of arguing for Democratic ideas, Ford and Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley falsely portray Democrats as out of the mainstream:

With President Bush and the Republican Party on the rocks, many Democrats think the 2008 election will be, to borrow a favorite GOP phrase, a cakewalk. Some liberals are so confident about Democratic prospects that they contend the centrism that vaulted Democrats to victory in the 1990s no longer matters.

The temptation to ignore the vital center is nothing new. Every four years, in the heat of the nominating process, liberals and conservatives alike dream of a world in which swing voters don't exist. Some on the left would love to pretend that groups such as the Democratic Leadership Council, the party's leading centrist voice, aren't needed anymore.

But for Democrats, taking the center for granted next year would be a greater mistake than ever before. . . . With an ambitious common-sense agenda, the progressive center has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to win back the White House, expand its margins in Congress and build a political and governing majority that could last a generation.

What in blazes are they talking about? On what issue is any Democrat arguing for ignoring swing voters? Why does the DLC insist on negatively caricaturing the progressive BASE of the Party? This is precisely why no one wants the DLC anymore. It is not their stands on any particular issue. It is their insistence on bashing the Democratic Party. The simple truth is a Democratic organization can not be based on espousing anti-Democratic principles an dbeing anti-Democratic Party. And that is what the DLC chooses to be. That is why it is obsolete. More.

Congress' lamenting the heat and their need for a vacation leaves me cold.

"It's hot, it's humid, people are tired and ready to go home," says Rep. John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) as he sucks on a cigarette at the Cantina Marina event. "Most of America wants us to go home. It's like this every summer."

But it's not every summer that lawmakers take to cots in the Senate to dramatize an all-night debate over the Iraq war. Nor is it every summer that angry Republicans march off the House floor in the wee hours to protest a parliamentary maneuver by Democrats.

It's hot everywhere. In the past ten days I've been in Denver, Omaha and Chicago. I'm tired of 95 degree humid weather too, but I didn't let it affect my work.

The Democrats caved on FISA and who knows what else -- we'll probably have to wait until the fine print of the passed bills with last minute amendments becomes available to see what they really did.

Why? Because Bush said he'd exercise his unitary power to deny them a recess and force them to cancel or rebook vacation plans?

More...

Christy cites from a past NYObserver article:

In all, Mr. Lieberman’s This Week appearance lasted about 11 minutes, and if anything became clear in that time it’s how decreasingly relevant to the national political debate he’s becoming—a decline that not many foresaw last November, when Connecticut’s voters returned him to the Senate, prompting talk that a new power-broker, coveted equally by both parties, had been born.

TalkLeft last November:

What Joe Lieberman has to say on Iraq is simply irrelevant. What Reid, Levin, Pelosi and Murtha say matters from the Congress. And of course what Bush says from the Executive. Joe Lieberman is not part of the conversation.

and this:

Joe will not be relevant unless he breaks his word on caucusing with the Dems.

Just sayin'

Via digby, Canadian born David Frum says people like me lack something:

[a] deep attachment to the American nation (and who are thus immune to the most potent of Republican appeals.)

The irony of a Canadian born person stating that he will have a deeper attachment to the American nation than I, a native born Hispanic-American, is deep.

The despicable nature of a WHITE Canadian born person assuming he has a higher capacity for deep attachment to the American nation actually is the BEST explanation of why Republicans are now relegated to a dim political future.

The funny thing is, say what you will about Bush and Rove, they had the good sense to know that darker skinned Hispanic Americans were just as capable of a deep attachment to the American nation as white Canadian Americans.