It's a starting point, at least.

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January 29, 2006

Dear Senator Landrieu:

Plenty of your Louisiana constituents are my new Texas neighbors. I write to you in their interest and my own - because there's frankly no talking to my own senators about this - to urge you not to vote for cloture in the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.

Haven't seen this diaried yet: AP reports as of an hour ago that the Pentagon has dropped its objection to the Able Danger hearings.

AG stands for Attorney General as well as Abu Ghraib. It also stands for Alberto Gonzales, and the conventional wisdom is that all three will be inextricably linked sometime after the inauguration. Most Democrats see "Abu Gonzales" as a casually horrifying inevitability, and Congressional leadership seems resigned to asking the proverbial "hard questions" before ultimately signing off on him.

Even The New York Times offered Gonzales a minor inoculation against criticism of the vetting process in the botched Bernard Kerik nomination -- which is, weirdly enough, perceived as perhaps the one thing that could put a corresponding kibosh on Gonzales at this point. Team Bush hasn't been nearly so shy, absolving Gonzales outright for a perceived failure to ask tough questions (or, apparently, even just sit down with Google for five minutes).

But you never know when the cavalry will appear over the Hill, nor who will be leading the charge. And in this case, the cavalry is a group of former high-ranking military lawyers who are, for various reasons, actively seeking ways to derail Gonzales' nomination.