No Curtain Calls for Gonzales

"British officials said Tuesday there was 'sufficient evidence' to charge a Russian former KGB agent with murder and seek his extradition from Moscow in the sensational poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko." (WaPo)

Livinenko was an outspoken critic of Russian President Valdimir Putin, and pointed the finger of blame for his poisoning at Putin from his deathbed.

But, Moscow has already made it clear they wouldn't cooperate with any British attempt to extradite Andrei Lugovoy who met with Litvinenko for tea at a London hotel on the day he fell ill.

The timing for the British in filing these charges is curious.

Tomorrow, the G8 Justice and Interior Ministers.... from Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Canada, United Kingdom, Russia and the United States.... are meeting in Munich in advance of the G8 Summit in early June.

Ironically, the ministers will be discussing among other things "international judicial cooperation, particularly in the fields of counter-terrorism."

Surely the poisoning of Litvinenko in London by a former KGB agent using a rare and deadly isotope.... 97 percent of which is manufactured in Russia.... would qualify as terrorism. This would be the perfect opportunity to exercise "international judicial cooperation."

A Litvinenko family spokesman, Alex Goldfarb, said the British investigators "have pretty strong evidence" based on the radioactive trail.... where it came from and who was handling it.

So, will these icons of world justice meeting tomorrow demand Russia's cooperation with Britain's prosecution?

Don't hold your breath.

Not when the likes of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is the person representing law and justice for the United States at the G8 meeting.... The Decider's legal strawman who has prostituted his legal moral authority.

So, the G8 justice ministers will probably ignore the hot potato of extradition in the diplomatic confrontation between London and Moscow.

But, perhaps not all justice will be denied.

Sometime in the next two weeks the Senate is planning a vote of no confidence in Gonzales. A move The Decider has called pure "political theater."

However, if Gonzales doesn't resign after a bipartisan no confidence vote, and, The Decider doesn't fire him, the "I" word is being urged on Congress as a means of ridding us of this legal pestilence.

For Gonzales, theater it is, and the curtain will be going down.