You can tell that the congressional summer vacation is almost over and that investigations will be resuming shortly.

According to the New York Times, Alberto Gonzales has resigned:

Alberto R. Gonzales, whose tenure has been marred by accusations of perjury before Congress, has resigned. A senior administration official said he would announce the decision later this morning in Washington…

Some will say, “what took him so long?”. Others will ask, “why now?”. There is a fairly easy answer to the first question: the hubris of the entire Bush administration, and the general acknowledgment that they feel they’re beyond the reach of the rule of law.

The second question is a bit more complicated. Contempt of congress citations that are forthcoming will be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of legal battles that the administration is facing, going forward. The NYT says that Bush accepted Gonzo’s resignation “grudgingly”. With his primary firewall against all scandals foreign and domestic now gone, a better adjective might have been, “fearfully”. But the bottom line is that Bush and Cheney make no moves without completely thinking through the scenarios, and if Bush had told Fredo (his pet name for Gonzales) that it wasn’t a good time to quit, Fredo wouldn’t be quitting. So, yes, the timing is a bit curious.

Regarding Gonzales’ legacy at DOJ, Shaun Mullen notes at The Moderate Voice:

He made John Ashcroft and even Janet Reno look good.

Anyway, I’ll try to update this post throughout the day as more details become available.

Update 1: Speculation has been running rampant for quite some time that DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff will replace Gonzales. Fair enough. Let the confirmation questions start here.

Update 2: Apparently, there’s also a lot of swirling chatter that Bush will make some sort of recess appointment, in much the manner that he slid John Bolton into the U.N. I don’t think such an action would go over well with anyone.