Governor Bill Owens today appointed U.S. Attorney John Suthers to be Attorney General of Colorado. Suthers, who lost to Ken Salazar for Attorney General in 1998, will go from being our top federal cop to our top state cop. Why would Suthers want the job? Perhaps because he has further political ambitions. It’s more common for a state Attorney General to get elected to Congress than it is a U.S. Attorney.

U.S. Attorneys are appointed by the President. President Bush will name a replacement for Suthers. He can choose a career prosecutor from within the office or one of his stalwart political supporters.

I suspect it will be the latter. The bottom line of today’s news is that beginning in 2005, both of Colorado’s key prosecution agencies will be in the hands of Republicans.