Matt Gaetz has removed his name from consideration for the role of attorney general:

This provides us with an excellent illustration of the necessity of the U.S. Senate. Gaetz says all the right things in his tweet, but, whether he had “excellent meetings with Senators yesterday” or not, the only reason that his confirmation had become a “distraction” and a “scuffle” is that Gaetz was unsuitable for the job for which he’d been nominated — and everyone knew it. The Senate did not end up voting Gaetz down — or even threatening to vote Gaetz down — but the mere prospect of a protracted hearing was sufficient to make his liabilities clear. If the Senate did not exist — or if the president had found a way to neuter it — the announcement of Gaetz and the installation of Gaetz would have been the same thing. Because it does exist, they were not. I understand that there is great enthusiasm on the right at the moment, but it remains the case that, when power is at stake, roadblocks are Good, Actually, and, furthermore, that the existence of a roadblock in this case yielded an outcome that was not only good for the country, but for Donald Trump’s presidency as well.