Hatch unlikely to be Gonzales' replacement

With U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' resignation coming earlier this week, the name of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, is once again making several short lists for U.S. attorney general.

Sometimes veteran Washington, D.C., insiders' names are floated more as a compliment to that person than any real opportunity to be picked for this or that important appointment.

Certainly, President Bush wants to pick someone who could easily be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

And don't take all the noise coming from Capitol Hill about how this appointment could be divisive or held up for a long time.

True, Gonzales was a controversial appointee. And the U.S. Justice Department's upper echelons may be a mess and demoralized.

But few federal bosses had a tenure as controversial as Donald Rumsfeld's. Yet when Bush picked Robert Gates to replace Rumsfeld, Gates' nomination flew through the Senate.

So the argument that senators would be more comfortable with one of their own moving over to Justice doesn't hold a lot of water.

Rumors are flying around Utah political circles about who would be picked by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. to temporarily replace Hatch, should the 73-year-old senator be tapped by Bush and accept the Justice Department job.

Huntsman, of course, has taken himself out of the appointee mix. He told the Deseret Morning News weeks ago that should Hatch resign his Senate post to take over Justice, Huntsman would not let his name come out of the Utah Republican Party's central committee recommendation.

The central committee would send Huntsman three names. He'd pick one. And while that person would directly go to the U.S. Senate (no confirmation needed by the Utah Senate), he or she would have to run for re-election in 2008 to fill out the remaining four years of Hatch's term.

And almost assuredly both Republicans and Democrats alike would treat that election as an open seat — there would be challenges galore, like there were in 1992, the last time Utah saw an open U.S. Senate seat.

In fact, should Hatch not be picked as attorney general and should he run for re-election in 2012, the then-78-year-old would likely see a strong challenge from within his own party.