Speculation is swirling about who will replace Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- everyone from Utah's Senator Orrin Hatch to former Solicitor General and Clinton stalker Theodore Olsen. Until last week, the name most bandied about was Secretary of Homeland Security and USAPATRIOT Act co-author Michael Chertoff. You'd think selecting Chertoff in light of the New Orleans debacle would be a stupid thing to do since Chertoff's continued ideological mishandling of the Katrina disaster borders on the criminally insane.

Update [2006-3-4 10:9:55 by Tom Ball]: Looks like Chertoff might only have a few days left:

"In the aftermath of the public revelation of the presidential 'teleconference' and mounting criticism of the performance of Michael Chertoff, Administration sources told Human Events today that the secretary of Homeland Security has 'only a few days left' in the Bush Cabinet." Said one source: "They will give him a little time so it won't hurt his reputation too much, but he's probably got only a few days left."

As Ex-FEMA Director Michael Brown calls for Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff's resignation, rumors are making the rounds that Brown just might get his wish.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff "suddenly canceled his keynote speech at an American Bar Association conference in San Francisco, fueling speculation that he was about to resign." A Department of Homeland Security spokesman dismissed the rumor, claiming Chertoff "had to change his schedule because of urgent preparations for a Friday trip to San Antonio, Texas" to meet with government officials in Mexico.

Of course the fire has been stoked by two recent media revelations:

The AP yesterday released a videotape,
Disallowing Chertoff and Bush to escape...

...the castigation deserved for the Katrina disaster,
For being forewarned but not acting faster.

NOLA Mayor Nagin said of the tape, he was "shocked",
Where was Bush when the Bayou was rocked?

Well, the August 28 conference showed many officials warn,
Of things such as 'levee failure' from the Hurricane's scorn.

But Bush sat silent at the briefing 'fore Katrina struck,
Perhaps he was considering how to best pass the buck.

Nevertheless, before disaster hit, Bush assured us,
'we're fully prepared' - into oblivion he lured us.

Since Bush Ignores warnings of all that matters,
New Orleans was left alone and in tatters.

So further evidence this is of an administration aloof
Led by a smirking, self-righteous, goof.

(fin)

From Egypt to Afghanistan, when terrorists and gangsters need a place to meet, to relax, maybe to invest, they head to Dubai...

[Dubai] serves as the region's criminal crossroads, a hub for smuggling, money laundering, and underground banking. There are Russian and Indian mobsters, Iranian arms traffickers, and Arab jihadists. Funds for the 9/11 hijackers and African embassy bombers were transferred through the city. It was the heart of Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan's black market in nuclear technology and other proliferation cases. Half of all applications to buy U.S. military equipment from Dubai are from bogus front companies, officials say. "Iran," adds one U.S. official, "is building a bomb through Dubai." Last year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents thwarted the shipment of 3,000 U.S. military night-vision goggles by an Iranian pair based in Dubai. Moving goods undetected is not hard.

 -- U.S. News & World Report (Dec 5, 2005)

President Bush has made it clear that he hadn't a clue about the events unfolding within his Administration surrounding the management takeover of 6 U.S. Ports by the United Arab Emirates.

We've also learned that very few others in the administration seemed to know anything about the transaction prior to the media blow-up -- certainly those who should have known about it were unaware. By their own admission, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Treasury Secretary John Snow, and Homeland Security Czar, Michael Chertoff were left completely in the dark.

Normally, that would be no big deal, but here we're talking about a post-911 world (as the administration feels constantly compelled to remind us) coupled with arguably the nation's most vulnerable points of entry.