Yesterday afternoon, Rachel Paulose announced that she’s resigning as U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota to serve as Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy. To the attorneys in the beleaguered Minnesota office, the e-mail must have seemed like the rainbow after the flood: a small sign from newly sworn Attorney General Michael Mukasey that the disaster of the Gonzales years is finally over.

The Biblical reference wouldn’t be lost on Paulose, a devout Christian who has been portrayed as a holy terror at work, proselytizing and reciting chapter and verse from the Good Book.

As of Friday, she was still trying to hold on to the job as yet another of her senior lawyers resigned his management post in protest of her leadership and controversy continued over allegations of racism and mishandling of classified documents. In a last ditch effort to make her case, she went on the record for Scott Johnson, her friend at the National Review Online, saying:

“The McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society; a person of faith; and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color) is truly a disservice to our country.”

Referencing the famous Clarence Thomas line, Johnson described Paulose as the victim of a ‘low-tech lynching.’

Whew! So, are we really so creeped out by people of color who are also social conservatives and effusively Republican? Creeped out enough to believe the worst about their characters and conduct and fitness for public service?

While Clarence Thomas and Rachel Paulose would answer yes, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell might well have other thoughts on the matter.

Whatever forces Paulose claims worked against her in Minnesota, the protest resignations point to the simple conclusion that she was not cutting it at the job, and that her appointment was ill-advised from the beginning.

In bringing her back to D.C., Mukasey has awarded Paulose the benefit of the doubt, which is likely all she deserves under the circumstances.