Gonzales won’t go, but if he does …

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Washington’s chattering classes are suggesting that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales will be gone as early as this week. Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it. There’s no precedent for such a move in the Bush White House. Remember Don Rumsfeld? The default play is to ride out the storm until the bitter end. Republicans and Democrats alike spent years calling for Rummy’s resignation. Even Sen. John McCain, a loyal Bush soldier on Iraq, lost confidence in him. But Rumsfeld lasted longer than most observers thought he could.

Ultimately, it wasn’t torture at Abu Ghraib or losing a war in Iraq that cost Rumsfeld his job. It was the White House’s need to protect Karl Rove. Rove lost an election, so Rumsfeld got fired. It will probably take a similar bit of calculus to force Gonzales to leave, too. If Karl Rove is in danger, Gonzales will go. If Rove is safe, Gonzales won’t be added to his list of victims, which already includes Scooter Libby and Rumsfeld. As Ed Henry said on CNN this morning:

[T]he 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.

We probably won’t know how much trouble Rove is in until after he talks to Congress. Until then, those who predicted Karl Rove’s decline last November had better start running for cover.