Everybody already hates the WaPo redesign because it makes it harderto find the news. But now they're really going to hate it, because they've put the comics right there next to Fred Hiatt's delusional mumblings. Abu G, in a desperate attempt to hold onto his job, pens an Op-Ed. Hilarity ensues:

[ABU G] What began as a well-intentioned management effort to identify where, among the 93 U.S. attorneys, changes in leadership might benefit the department, and therefore the American people, has become an unintended public controversy.

Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha! Let's look at what Daniel Metcalfe, a now retired Justice career professional, has to say about how Bush and Gonzales turned the Justice Department into an arm of the RNC:

[METCALFE] But the process of agency functioning, however, became dramatically different almost immediately after Gonzales arrived. No longer was emphasis placed on accomplishing something with the highest-quality product in a timely fashion; rather, it became a matter of making sure that a "consensus" was achieved, regardless of how long that might take and with little or no concern that quality would suffer in such a "lowest common denominator" environment. And heaven help anyone, career or noncareer employee, if that "consensus" did not include whatever someone in the White House might think about something, be it large, small or medium-sized.

“Befehlsnotstand.

In short, the culture markedly shifted to one in which avoiding any possibility of disagreement anywhere was the overriding concern, as if "consensus" were an end unto itself. Undergirding this, what's more, was the sad fact that so many political appointees in 2005 and 2006 were so obviously thinking not much further than their next (i.e., higher-level) position, in some place where they could "max out" by the end of Bush's second term.

Back to Abu G for the cover story:

[ABU G]While I have never sought to deceive Congress or the American people, I also know that I created confusion with some of my recent statements about my role in this matter. To be clear: I directed my then-deputy chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, to initiate this process; fully knew that it was occurring; and approved the final recommendations. Sampson periodically updated me on the review. As I recall, his updates were brief, relatively few in number and focused primarily on the review process.

During those conversations, to my knowledge, I did not make decisions about who should or should not be asked to resign.

Right. Let's repeat again what Metcalfe said:

[Decision-making] became a matter of making sure that a "consensus" was achieved ... And heaven help anyone, career or noncareer employee, if that "consensus" did not include whatever someone in the White House might think about something, be it large, small or medium-sized.

There was no need for Gonzales to "make decisions"--although that, in itself, is remarkable if he's running the department--because the White House had already put out the word. That's how things operate with these guys; word filters out from the top, and stuff just... gets done.

The "consensus" works exactly like Abu Ghraib: Bush and Shooter convey to the troops, through Limbaugh, for example, that torture is OK, and it starts happening. No chain of command, no accountability, and a few bad apples take the fall while the decision makers get plausible deniability. Froomkin:

This White House’s corporate culture is that Bush gets what he wants. Sometimes, he doesn’t even have to say what that is; it’s understood.

And no one understands Bush better — or responds with more alacrity — than his longtime “enabler”, Alberto Gonzales.

In an even more criminal and psychotic regime than the Bush administration, we would see Fuhrerprinzip at work, and we'd see the "loyal Bushies" as "working toward the Fuhrer":

From a review in, of all places, The National Review, of Ian Kershaw’s Hitler: 1936-1945: Nemesis:

The Fuhrer state, as Kershaw shows, moved dynamically in a radical direction. Hitler himself was the source of all power because of his hold on the German Volk. There was no need to issue detailed orders. He merely set forth the goals in broad outline, as he had done in Mein Kampf and countless speeches. Here Kershaw introduces an expression I had not known before: “working toward the Fuhrer.” Individuals competed for Hitler’s favor by divining his wishes and getting things done. Whether building U-boats or bombers, producing artificial rubber, or rounding up and “relocating” Jews, the elites of the Reich “worked toward the Fuhrer.” This produced accelerating activity in the direction he was known to favor. Little was to be gained by arguing that the country had enough U-boats, for example. And there were no institutional checks: no Politburo, no highly organized and bureaucratic party.

Sound familiar? Especially that part about “no checks”?

But just in case Abu G has any lingering credibility problems:

I have nevertheless asked the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility to further investigate this matter. Working with the department's Office of Inspector General, these nonpartisan professionals will complete their own independent investigation so that Congress and the American people can be 100 percent assured of what I believe and what the investigation thus far has shown: that nothing improper occurred.

Office of Professional Responsibility... Office of Professional Responsbility... Ah, yes!:

Shortly before Attorney General Alberto Gonzales advised President Bush last year on whether to shut down a Justice Department inquiry regarding the administration's warrantless domestic eavesdropping program, Gonzales learned that his own conduct would likely be a focus of the investigation, according to government records and interviews.

Bush personally intervened to sideline the Justice Department probe in April 2006 by taking the unusual step of denying investigators the security clearances necessary for their work.

It is unclear whether the president knew at the time of his decision that the Justice inquiry -- to be conducted by the department's internal ethics watchdog, the Office of Professional Responsibility -- would almost certainly examine the conduct of his attorney general.

So, how soon before Bush shuts down this OPR investigation? Especially if any of the gwb43.com mail bears on, er, matters of national security like, say, domestic surveillance?