Opinion: The wrong resignation?

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So far, the controversy over the firing of U.S. attorneys hasn’t approached Watergate status. (It will have to be called “Attorneygate” first.) But, like that storied scandal, it has claimed a few victims. The most sympathetic may be Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty, who announced his resignation yesterday.

McNulty is the official who was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee in February to defend the firings with what later proved to be, er, inadequate information. McNulty contributed one of the few memorable phrases to a scandal that has been sadly short of them. McNulty told the panel that ‘when I hear you talk about the politicizing of the Department of Justice, it’s like a knife in my heart. ‘

Perhaps McNulty, who is leaving while Attorney Generall Alberto Gonzales hangs on, should amend that quotation to “a knife in my back.”