Not sure I follow your logic, Reece.

Which is harder to govern? New York City? Or Arkansas? I would bet New York. But I didn't complain that Clinton lacked the experience to be President. Hell, as Mayor of New York, Bloomberg probably has a better seat for foreign affairs than many State Governors do.

I'm not considering Bloomberg (who I don't think will run), but I am just saying.

Posted at June 21, 2007 9:20 AM in response to I Could Vote for Bloomberg

Thought about this during lunch. In the end, one way or another, Alberto Gonzales is not long for his job.

But there is a larger prediction I am willing to make, and it is this: The disapproval of the President and of this Administration, deteriorating as it has in a slow but steady decline over the past two years, will now snowball. How much, or how fast I can't guess at, but it will snowball.

The drubbing Gonzales took today has a number of repercussions. First, it emboldens the Democratic Congress in ways that no other event has or can. This was not the behind the doors wrangling over language for incremental inches of gain on particular legislation. This was a broadly televised, public squaring off of the Democratic majority against one of the President's loyalists, and the Legislative ate the Executive's lunch. Think about it: when was the last time there was a significant, televised Congressional hearing? It's been a long time. And the Democrats absolutely trounced a sitting Attorney General (who did not, in any way, shape or form, help his own case...in fact, he dug his own grave). This has to, has to, has to, embolden the Congress. Which leads to more, or fiercer, oversight. Which leads to more revelations.

Second, this serves as a bit of the pulling back of the curtain to see exactly who and what the wizard is. The first big peek behind that curtain came in the hours and days after Katrina. Hoo boy was the Wizard revealed then. But now this will ebb over into not just competence (which is what Katrina was all about), but core issues of politicization. Brownie was incompetent and FEMA was incompetent, and the President was incompetent when it came to Katrina. But now, all this--the firing of seven clearly well-regarded attorneys for purely political reasons (what else could it have been?)--shows the Administration not only to be incompetent, but cravenly political.

I think this will, perhaps more than anything in two years, cause people in the street to say, at a greater level and at a higher decibel, "Hey, look at that. The Emperor really doesn't have any clothes."

Posted at April 19, 2007 2:46 PM in response to Reader poll: the end?