My friend Chad, at CCK, has finally figured out what he is trying to say.
This is what I've been trying to say ...
By Chad | March 19, 2007 - 11:43am... over and over about the U.S. Attorney scandal. The Ol' Perfesser should take note:
For the trolls, what's not okay is to fire US Attorneys because they are investigating members of your own party, or because they aren't investigating enough people of the other party. That is, to fire them to obstruct or distort justice, especially with regard to public corruption cases. It's a rather simple concept.
So it's not the fact that Bush fired people he appointed that is a scandal, as Chad earlier tried to say. It's the fact that Bush fired people for political reasons, for example, because they were "investigating members of [his] own party." So that's what is special about Bush's behavior. But as I have already pointed out, quoting the Wall Street Journal, the same thing is just as evident in the behavior of Chad's hero, Bill Clinton. When Janet Reno fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys,
Jay Stephens, then U.S. Attorney in the District of Columbia, was investigating then Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski, and was "within 30 days" of making a decision on an indictment. Mr. Rostenkowski, who was shepherding the Clinton's economic program through Congress, eventually went to jail on mail fraud charges and was later pardoned by Mr. Clinton.
In fact, Clinton had every right to dismiss all 93 U.S. Attorneys. They were political appointees. Bush had just as much right to dismiss 8 of them. There is reason to suspect that both Clinton and Bush weren't happy with some of the things these attorneys were doing or not doing. But suspicion does not amount to scandal. So far there is zero evidence that Bush was trying to subvert the course of justice, or that Clinton was doing the same.
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