The McClatchy newspapers are reporting this morning that yesterday the Inquisitor General, Alberto Gonzalez, had a conference call with all 93 US Attorneys, apologizing for getting caught trying to fire eight of their number who put the rule of law above loyalty to Dear Leader, George Bu$h.

Gonzales apologized to the prosecutors not for the firings but for their execution, including for inaccurate public statements about poor job performance, according to people familiar with the afternoon conference call.

"It shouldn't have happened," Gonzales said, according to one lawyer familiar with the conversation. The lawyer, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the matter, said Gonzales acknowledged that he'd seemed too detached during his news conference earlier this week. He told the prosecutors that he "should have known" about the dismissal planning by his former chief of staff.

"I want you to feel like you can be open with me," Gonzales told the attorneys, and he gave his assurance that their independence was expected and that they wouldn't be punished.

The lawyer described the call as "forward looking," suggesting that Gonzales perhaps didn't plan to step down.

As a sign of how desperate he was to hang onto his job, Mr Gonzalez said he was replacing Kyle Samson, the first designated fall guy in this scandal, with Chuck Rosenberg, who is described as a respected attorney from Virginia. Mr Rosenberg is currently the US Attorney in Alexandria, and has served a Chief of Staff for John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller III.

The Bu$h malAdministration has insisted that the eight attorneys, seven dismissed on December 7th and the last several months later, were fired for performance issues and not because they refused to invent prosecutable cases of voter fraud against Democrats. Knowledgeable observers have flatly insisted this statement was a lie, since it was the immediate reaction of the White House.

The observers’ reactions would seem to be correct, as copies of emails released this week provided “smoking gun” evidence that for more than a year Messers Gonzalez and Sampson and Harriett Miers worked on the tactical steps needed to replace the recalcitrant US Attorneys with more obedient Republican sockpuppets.

In recent days, the Justice Department and the White House have been forced to defend the firings after internal e-mails revealed a coordinated effort to root out U.S. attorneys who'd fallen out of favor with the administration.

Administration critics and allies alike were startled by the degree to which politics appeared to be driving the planned purge of the Republican appointees in the months before the 2006 congressional elections. In one e-mail, one official said the plan was to replace "underperforming" U.S. attorneys and retain the "vast majority" who were "loyal Bushies."

On Friday, Democrats seethed when the Bush administration missed a deadline to turn over new documents in a congressional investigation into whether the firings were part of a larger effort to politicize the department. More Republicans also publicly questioned Gonzales' independence from Bush and his management of his staff.

Across the country, morale within U.S. attorneys' offices deteriorated, leaving many feeling misled by the Bush administration.

"They feel a strong sense of betrayal," said a former Bush administration Justice Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his friends in the administration.

Late Friday, the Justice Department said it would turn over on Monday the remaining documents that Congress requested.

An unofficial survey of knowledgeable observers in an industry unrelated to the administration of law indicates that the odds are 5 to 2 that Mr Gonzalez will be packing up his desk tchotchkes and wall plaques before next Friday.