This won't happen:

Lieberman as next Attorney General?

That's what Marjorie Cohn is saying on The Thom Hartmann Show. ... Per Cohn:

It would stop the Senate investigations dead in their tracks....

Stop. Please just stop right there. Stop thinking that the investigations are going to draw any blood whatsoever, ever. And remember, the heat may have gotten to be too much for Gonzales, but Bush doesn't give a crap.

It would guarantee a Senate confirmation.

It would change the balance of power in the Senate, in favor of the Republicans....

Well, yes -- but it would also mean Lieberman has to stop playing his infantile game of "I have power! You'd better be nice to me!" with Democrats, which is now his reason for living. And the Republicans would no longer get to pretend that he's the lone sane Democrat, acting completely independently of the GOP because he remembers when Democrats fought Pure Evil and his party-mates don't.

Don't forget, he was rumored to be a replacement for Rumsfeld. He wasn't. There was talk about him replacing Cheney. That didn't happen.

Balance of power in the Senate? The Republicans already have the balance of power in the Senate, at least on the war. I think the status quo is perfect as far as the White House is concerned -- Republican voters blame Democrats for using their power to try to thwart Bush, while Democratic voters blame Democrats for failing to thwart Bush. Why would Bush want to mess with success?

It's so much easier for Bush to find someone who is seen as honorable by the Washington establishment but actually isn't -- someone who will be defended by the press if he's the object of a serious challenge by Democrats. MSNBC lists three perfect candidates:

Per a source close to the White House, ex-Deputy Attorney General George J. Terwilliger III is "looking very good" to replace Alberto Gonzales. Former Solicitor General Ted Olson and former appellate judge Laurence Silberman are "also in the running."

As Avedon Carol says:

Terwilliger helped make the whole BCCI scandal go away for some important people (like GHW Bush).

Ted Olsen, a mastermind of the Arkansas Project to throw even the most absurd mud at the Clintons until they could make something appear to stick, was also one of the men who actually went to the Supreme Court to argue that it would be unfair to allow the ballots to be counted in Florida because then George Bush might not get to be president....

Laurence Silberman is one of the most dangerous men in America, and his decisions have cost us dearly. Find a right-wing conspiracy, and you'll usually find Silberman in it somewhere.

But they are all regarded as honorable men, and a decision not to rubber-stamp any of them would tell the Establishment that the dirty hippies and bloggers have seized control of the Democratic Party.

Tom Hilton says:

...there's one question that should be dispositive in any confirmation hearing: will you enforce the subpoenas on Miers and Rove? Anyone who fails to give an unequivocally positive answer shouldn't make it out of the Judiciary committee.

Oh, if wishes were horses....

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UPDATE: Er, you know who would both infuriate all right-thinking people and get confirmed easily? Little Ricky from Pennsylvania, who sure likes the War on Terror in maximalist form and, as far as I know, doesn't really have a job. He's one of Richard Viguerie's picks, along with Ed Meese and virtually every Bush judicial nominee who failed to get confirmed.