Bill Richardson has withdrawn his bid to be commerce secretary.

Bill Richardson on Sunday announced that he was withdrawing his nomination to be President-elect Barack Obama's commerce secretary amid a grand jury investigation into how some of his political donors won a lucrative state contract

Obama has already accepted this decision.

Bill Richardson thought U.S. trade policy was just great, supported NAFTA and also wanted to increase H-1B and other guest worker Visas.

So perhaps with this investigation of a business making large political donations and magically getting awarded large state contracts (tell me a state where this does not happen?), we might get a reprieve and have a commerce secretary interested in representing the U.S. national interest?

One can only hope [sic].