White House Countermeasures

Last night's 3,000-page Justice Department document dump, still dribbling out into the public domain, appears to be a much more carefully screened release than the smaller but newsier one last week.

In barely acknowledging the White House role in the highly controversial, possibly politically-motivated firing of eight U.S. attorneys, these new documents may best be described as a lot of chaff, intended to deflect attention from evidence in the previous dump that the purge originated at the White House, was executed by the White House, and was extensively discussed with White House aides.

Similarly, President Bush's message of support this morning for Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has all the trappings of a carefully staged hail-Mary, with the president giving his friend one last chance to rally enough Republican support to ride out the storm.

But the indications remain that Bush may well toss Gonzales overboard, especially if that's the only way he can see to prevent the scandal from being pursued deeper into the West Wing.

Or, as Ed Henry reported on CNN this morning: "As one top Republican told me last night, a Republican close to the White House, saying basically the handwriting is on the wall for Gonzales. And the bottom line is if this White House has to choose between protecting Karl Rove or protecting Alberto Gonzales in order for this controversy to go away, they'll choose Karl Rove, protecting him. Because the bottom line is they can get another attorney general, they can't get another Karl Rove. He's got his hands in so many things here. He's the lead adviser to the president."

Bush's Call

Howard Schneider writes for The Washington Post: "President Bush reaffirmed his 'strong backing and support' for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in a telephone conversation with him this morning, an endorsement that came amid wide speculation about Gonzales's future in the administration.

"White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said the president called Gonzales around 7:15 a.m. to assure him he still had the president's backing despite controversy over the Justice Department's firing last year of eight U.S. attorneys.

"Even some Republicans have withdrawn their support from Gonzales over the firings and encouraged him to step down. Political analysts and blogs have begun speculating about possible replacements and claimed that the White House has begun its own search.

"In comments this morning Perino said no such search is underway."

Counterattack

Robert Schmidt and James Rowley write for Bloomberg: "The Bush administration sought to quell the controversy over the firing of eight federal prosecutors by giving Congress e-mails that show the U.S. attorneys were the target of complaints and had policy disputes with officials in Washington."

For instance, they write: "Among some 3,000 pages of Justice Department documents delivered to Congress last night were e-mails describing a feud between fired San Diego prosecutor Carol Lam and Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who complained that she hadn't aggressively enforced immigration laws along the Mexican border.

"Democrats have questioned whether Lam was fired for leading the investigation of Randall H. 'Duke' Cunningham, a former California Republican congressman who pleaded guilty to accepting millions of dollars in bribes to help companies get defense contracts."