TIME lists the reasons Bush won't can Gonzo

And I hate to admit how right they are (again my bold emphasis):

1. Gonzales is all that stands between the White House and special prosecutors. As dicey as things are for Bush right now, his advisers know that they could get much worse. In private, Democrats say that if Gonzales did step down, his replacement would be required to agree to an independent investigation of Gonzales' tenure in order to be confirmed by the Senate...

2 ... Over the past six months, more than half a dozen top political appointees have left the department amid scandal. The unprecedented coziness that once existed between the Justice Department and the White House now remains solely in the person of Gonzales.

3. If Gonzales goes, the White House fears that other losses will follow. Top Bush advisers argue that Democrats are after scalps and would not stop at Gonzales. Congressional judiciary committees have already subpoenaed Harriet Miers and Karl Rove in the firings of U.S. Attorneys last year. Republicans are loath to hand Democrats some high-profile casualties to use in the 2008 campaign. Stonewalling, they believe, is their best way to avoid another election focused on corruption issues.

4. Nobody at the White House wants the legal bills and headaches that come with being a target of investigations. In backing Gonzales, Bush is influenced by advisers whose future depends on the survival of their political bodyguard. Gonzales remains the last line of defense protecting Bush, Rove and other top White House officials from the personal consequences of litigation. A high-profile probe would hobble the White House politically, and could mean sky-high legal bills and turmoil for Bush's closest aides.

Alberto Gonzales as human shield for all the other criminals in the Bush administration. Wonder how he likes being that?

But that's not the real question I care about. Nor do I give a damn for the political hay to be made by the Democrats in the Senate and the House and the ones who are running for president in 2008.

The real mystery to me here is: how high a price could a person command for that depth of fealty? How many plum consulting positions, how many corporate board appointments, how much for a tell-all memoir that wasn't, really?

How many millions of dollars is loyalty like that worth?

Even Republicans blast their candidates for ducking the YouTube debate

Now this is schadenfreude:

When the two leading Republican presidential candidates started to squirm last week about attending a Sept. 17 YouTube debate, in which the public would ask them questions via video, they faced a surprising backlash from their ideological allies in the blogosphere.

The candidates' failure to embrace the new format, which the Democrats participated in last week, has prompted public soul-searching by some of the party's most loyal supporters.

The candidates, they say, reinforced a notion already bedeviling their side: that Republicans don't "get" the Web. While the Republicans have mastered talk radio, the Democrats have led in using the Web for fundraising, organizing and energizing the grass roots.

"The YouTube debate snub is the symptom, not the disease," said Patrick Ruffini, a prominent Republican blogger and the e-campaign director for the Republican National Committee from 2005 until earlier this year.

The "disease," Ruffini said, is the Republicans' failure to convey that "the online community matters to them," even if they have active Web sites and are using them to raise money. He has helped start an online petition to urge the candidates to participate in the YouTube debate.

Andrew Sullivan, one of the only reasonable conservatives left on the Earth:

Andrew Sullivan, a conservative blogger writing on theatlantic.com, put it this way: "The current old white men running for the GOP already seem from some other planet. Ducking YouTube after the Dems did so well will look like a party uncomfortable with the culture and uncomfortable with democracy."

Be sure and read the comments from the local yokels (including me) at the link above.

The GOP presidential candidates are simply terrified of facing the voters like this. Answering a question in a completely unstructured format is anathema to the style of governance established over the past six-and-one-half years, and the Republicans don't want to return to the old days. Much too democratic (small 'd').

Hell, maybe even Hillary can beat these clowns.