CNN’s Dana Bash:

Loyal Republican after loyal Republican in this hearing room, and more specifically, in private to CNN today have made it clear that they are frankly flabbergasted by how poorly they think the attorney general has done in this hearing. … During the lunch break, in private, several very loyal Republicans made it clear to CNN that they were really dripping with disappointment.

CNN’s Suzanne Malveaux:

[White House officials] believe Gonzales is in trouble. … Two senior White House aides here describing the situation, Gonzales’ testimony, as “going down in flames.” That he was “not doing himself any favors.” One prominent Republican describing watching his testimony as “clubbing a baby seal.”

Mike Tomasky looks at the numbers and sees the possibility of a brokered convention. As a corollary to my view that it’s never a good time for a third-party presidential candidacy, I’ve decided that it’s also never a good time to predict a brokered convention. I completely agree with Tomasky’s logic, but similar logic applied in 2004, to some extent in 1992, to a large extent in 1988, etc., etc., etc. The rules of delegate-allocation strongly suggest that multicandidate races should end without anyone securing a majority. In practice, that’s not how it works. People are muscled out of the race and nothing get brokered.

So, on the one hand, I think Tomasky’s right. On the other hand, I’m pretty certain he’s wrong. In the event of brokering, the easy case is that Edwards has more delegates than Obama, Edwards + Obama equals a majority, and so we get an Edwards-Obama ticket. I feel like it would be weird for Edwards to run for Vice President a second time if the delegate counts are flipped, but that could happen, too. If there’s serious deadlockage, though, then Al Gore, older, wiser, and heavier, becomes president. Indeed, I’m eagerly awaiting paranoid conspiracy theories about Gore’s efforts to manipulate the primary in order to cause a deadlock.

“In this case, the idea that we are going to be involved in a ‘Long War,’ at the current level of operations, is not likely and unhelpful,” Centcom spokesman Lt. Col. Matt McLaughlin said. “We remain committed to our friends and allies in the region and to countering al-Qaida inspired extremism where it manifests itself. But one of our goals is to lessen our presence over time, [and] we didn’t feel that the term ‘Long War’ captured this nuance.”

Number of times Alberto Gonzales “testified that he could not recall events he was asked about,” according to an AP article that hit the wires at 3pm ET.

You should resign.

COBURN: Mr. Attorney General, it’s my considered opinion that the exact same standards should be applied to you in how this was handled. It was handled incompetently, the communication was atrocious. It was inconsistent. It’s generous to say that there was misstatements, that’s a generous statement. And I believe you ought to suffer the consequences that these others have suffered, and I believe the best way to put this behind us is your resignation.

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