(No, I don't mean the Republicans and the Democrats, though I confess to intemperate feelings regarding both.)

Alberto Gonzales was one kind of pox. He was a national embarrassment- a naked symbol of the corruption of the Bush administration. 'Naked' because he was the most isolated figure to haunt the Capitol- all he had going for him was his blind loyalty to his patron; he was clueless, friendless (except for Bush), and, speaking generally, became someone  permissible for 'moderate Republicans' like Arlen Specter to remorselessly tear apart. (And 'moderate Republicans,' as Lincoln Chafee reminds us, had plenty of rage bottled up against the Adminstration.)
He was an idiot. But that may not be the whole story. Most of us, given orders. like he was, to barge in on John Ashcroft's hospital bed in order to obtain permission to egregiously break the law (think about it!), would simply resign out of despair: We would not have the heart, or the stomach, for the task. I don't mean we would resign out of excess of humanity. We would resign for the same reason we don't light matches when we peer into the gas tank.

Gonzo had a strange quality of self-abnegation, which truly made him one of a kind.
This quality was not lost on his master, and in fact, may be one that was a shared characteristic,to some extent, though it plays out on a completely different level in Bush himself. Neither Bush nor Gonzo are a match for those around them- Gonzo quailed when he looked into Specter's eyes, just as Bush did when he looked into Cheney's- or Putin's. One has to be self-abnegating to put oneself through this- Gonzo, I think, was (and is) more self-aware than Bush will ever be, I don't think Bush would ever stick himself out as far- of his own free will, I mean-

Gonzo, in short, was a disfiguring, but not fatal, case of smallpox. Mukasey is a refined, virulent strain, the product of Soviet-era scientists laboring in gulags to create novel forms of pustules and fever- and then, secreted in our own illegal biowar labs. People are afraid of him- maybe even Addington. It makes me wonder if Mukasey was selected by Schumer as some sort of counter-poison, to be delivered to Bush for use against Cheney and co.- though of course he is also a plague on the Constitution and on the nation, and the world.

Maybe Schumer delivered this pox to Bush as a quid pro quo for not nuking Iran. (Schumer, like Bush, is a truly ugly cheerleader for war in the Middle East- but certainly neither are as cold-blooded as Cheney? And I have no doubt that Schumer is not as imprudent as he seems. Yes, he said Gonzo was "a good man, in over his head-" that may be true in a sense: Unthinking obesiance may be destructive, but it does not make someone "ungood" per se without additional characteristics that do not seem to have been present.)

And above all, Gonzo did not have the solicitude of Cheney, who pulled his friend Scooter from the "meat grinder." He must have known that his abject loyalty was not paralleled by any like sentiment in its object- Cheney would risk his neck for a friend- as soon as shoot one in the face- but Bush is a disloyal fuck. That is why Gonzo was the weak point- but- it was not to be-

  Maybe Mukasey is the price we have to pay to keep Addington at bay. It's not the first time the pox has been used to clear the ground, in this way.