According to White House insiders, Attorney General Gonzales' testimony today was a train wreck. On both the right and the left ends of the political spectrum, they're declaring him incompetent for fumbling with even the basic, basic facts about his involvement with the process of firing U.S. attorneys.

"How could he not know what was going on in his own department?"

How? It's easy. Because it wasn't his underlings who laid out the plan. It was his overlings in the White House. Rove. Miers. And in the case of U.S. Attorney David Iglesias, President Bush himself.

Gonzales has to pretend that he can't recall anything and divorce himself from being involved with the process while holding his breath, saying a Hail Mary, and hoping that everyone believes this was all going on below him when in fact, it was going on above him. He can't come up with real reasons why they were fired, because the real reason is that each firing was politically motivated to the core.

UPDATE: As usual, our man Froomkin gets it:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales took another massive blow to his reputation yesterday, but he also continued doing the White House an enormous service.

As long as Gonzales remains front and center in the furor over last year's mass firing of U.S. attorneys -- as long as his goofy stonewalling continues to distract attention from all the elements of the purge that point so incriminatingly toward the White House -- he simply enhances his position as the ultimate "loyal Bushie..."

...It's no surprise, therefore, that President Bush expressed delight over Gonzales's testimony -- even as some White House aides privately told CNN that he hadn't helped himself at all.