Via CNN: Senior admin. officials: Chertoff may get nod

President Bush may nominate Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff to replace Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General, senior administration officials told CNN Monday.

I will allow that Chertoff’s resume, including time on the federal bench, make him qualified for the position. However, two thoughts come to mind:

1) I suspect that Chertoff will be just as prone as Gonzales to see the War on Terror to be a guiding principal of the DoJ’s mission (something that makes him appealing to Bush, but something gives me pause–not that I expect Bush to appoint someone that I would necessarily be keen on at this stage of the game).

2) Chertoff hasn’t exactly been a shining star at DHS. He was initially clueless over Katrina and famously utilized indigestion as a method of counter-terrorism analysis.

Beyond that, CNN is reporting that Chertoff’s alleged replacement will be Clay Johnson III, who is that Deputy Director of the OMB. That strikes me as an odd place to get a Homeland Security Secretary. As Think Progress notes:

Johnson, who has no homeland security experience, is a professional Bush loyalist. While Johnson may have familiarity with some aspects of DHS’s budget, he appears to have no experience in the many responsibilities of the department, including immigration, air travel security, disaster response, and other aspects of our nation’s homeland defense.

He is one of Bush’s oldest friends, having attended both prep school and college with the President. Johnson served as Bush’s gubernatorial chief of staff in Texas before heading up the Bush-Cheney transition team.

Lovely, insofar as this is the Bush cronyism model reemerging. (You know, the model that got us Gonzales in the first place and was aiming to give us Associate Justice Miers).