Welcome to Gonzales Watch - Blawging the Ex-Attorney General

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is avoiding heading back to Washington like a cat avoids the neighborhood dog.

He continues his cross-country travels to U.S. Attorneys offices, speaking about the DOJ’s new campaign against child predators, Project Safe Childhood.

The unspoken component of these visits, however, is likely to be his attempts to gauge support for his remaining in office, and do a litmus test of how the DOJ’s frontline U.S. Attorneys view the nation’s top federal prosecutor.  And as this blog suggested earlier this week, speaking about protecting America’s kids from child predators is not something that the public, or Congress, will be able to poke criticism at lightly.

Gonzales has visited, or will be visiting, the following U.S. Attorneys’ offices as part of his latest campaign:

• St. Loui, MO (U.S. Attorneys Catherine Hanaway - Eastern District, Bradley Schlozman - Western District)
• Denver, CO (U.S. Attorney Troy Eid)
• Chicago, IL (U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald)
• Cincinnati, OH (U.S. Attorney Gregory G. Lockhart)

Fitzgerald and Gonzales are likely to have had a ’sit-down’ to discuss the unkind mention of the U.S. Attorney / Special Prosecutor’s performance by higher ups in DOJ e-mails.