Did I miss something? Don’t U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President? They do. Democrats and their media allies are determined to find great scandal in the removal of 8 U.S. attorneys by the administration. The administration was dissatisfied with their performance and they were removed.
Yes, Jim, you missed something. Although past Presidents have certainly removed U.S. Attorneys, it usually occurs at the beginning of an administration with wholesale house cleaning to allow payback and patronage. Not exactly the most noble act but at least the politics is fairly transparent. What you are missing in this story is the attorneys were dismissed late in an administration, a very rare occurrence, and evidence indicates that all were not fired for performance. What you are also missing or should I say ignoring is Alberto Gonzales misled congress regarding the reasons for the dismissals. Once again in previous administrations, this typical act of political obfuscation would have been hardly noticed. But an administration shown to be filled with serial liars who arrogantly hide the truth and then bristle at any question of integrity, it is certainly going to perk some ears.
You know, Jim. Most journalists ask "did I miss something". Fortunately, most answer the question themselves prior to publication instead of using it as a set up to vomit forth yet another talking point.
3 comments:
Poor Jim. Did he miss something big time -- again? The dismisal of the U.S attorneys was a pattern of this Admin's "behavior" sniffed out and investigated by indie blogger, Josh Marshall of TalkingPointsMemo.com, of whom there's now chatter of a Pulitzer nomination for his investigative work, which has crossed all sides of the aisle in terms of going after rogue politicans.
We can only stand-by and wish that "media" behaved more like Mr. Marshall.
As Digby says:
"One of the silliest conventions of modern journalism is that the press can't tell a story if "the other side" isn't screaming about it. Republicans are always screaming (and often are the ones feeding the scandal to the press in the first place) so it's very easy to find that hook. Democrats don't have the institutional infrastructure to successfully manufacture scandals and are often slow off the mark in seeing real ones, so the press doesn't feel they have any reason to pursue them. (And I guess stories about crass political patronage, even in the justice department, just aren't considered news anymore. That's a sad comment all by itself.)
In the case of the US Attorney purge, it was left to the victim to be brave enough to come forward before the mainstream press saw a story --- and likely it was mostly because the man who did it was an evangelical Christian and a Republican that made them take notice."
Full post here:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/hats-off-in-swamp-by-digby-jay-carney.html
Sorry to be a total pest, but Digby is so right on about "the media's" role, or lack thereof, in this AG scandal that I've got to quote him again:
"The problem here is that many in the press seem to see their role as some sort of referee and conduit for the two parties instead of independent fact finders and purveyors of truth."
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