While I love the thought that this scandal sticking and getting a lot of traction, I can’t help but be annoyed at the media that seems to be all over this scandal, while a war that has cost thousands of US live, hundreds of thousands Iraqi lives, billions of dollars, stretched our military thin, and other niceties is still being conducted under false pretenses, lies, mismanagement and threats and bullying. In reality this attorney scandal only deserves two weeks when compared to the historically huge scandal that is the War in Iraq. While public opinion has been shed to a consderable degree, it needs to be pressed and continued and this Administration needs to be completely accountable.
Not only that, but until just a few days ago, the White House was saying any attempt to repeal this clause would be vetoed.
Like you say, better and better.
And, listening to the radio just now, I actually heard a Pub senator (forget his name) repeat it. Have they no shame?!
Have they retreated from that position?
Although, the last I read, some senator, whose name I don’t recall, had managed to put a hold on advancing the legislation.
Update: The Senate Judiciary Committee has voted to subpoena five Justice Department officials involved in the firings and six of the USAs who were fired. However, they’re holding off on deciding whether to subpoena Miers, Rove, or Deputy WH Counsel William K. Kelley.
They minority of Republicans may have blocked Rove’s subpoena for now, but probably not for long:
I think this is going to get ugly.
I don’t see what everyone is upset about. A King is allowed to do whatever the hell he wants.
-Joe
Post #48
Do you have specific data on “firings” as opposed to allowing the 4 year appointment to lapse and not renewing, or accepting an unforced resignation?
Post #57
What were the actual numbers involved of those who were actually FIRED in those allegedly “traditional” cases by Reagan, Bush the Elder and Bush the Younger, as opposed to their not renewing appointments after the original term of appointment had lapsed?
It would be unwise to found your belief that until last December only 3 out of 486 attorneys have been fired by presidents since 1981 by quoting the “Congressional Report for Congress on US Attorneys who have served less than Full Four Year Terms 1981-2006”
14 Page PDF
CRS Report for Congress
From the report:
So the report defined out of existence the 92 or so firings carried out by Janet Reno at the behest of Prez Bill Clinton. The attorneys were given 10 days to get out. Manifestly, by the definition above, they were ineligible for inclusion in the report so, not surprisingly, it doesn’t mention them at all.
Apart from two or three cases (the report uses both figures in different places) no mention was made about “firing” attorneys in the report and I can find no indication as to how many of the 4 year appointments were renewed or allowed to lapse.
As far as I can work out, this report would have to rate as one of the most misleading and deceptive reports I have ever read. It provides little in the way of meaningful facts and omits so much detail that its findings, if one could describe them as such, are meaningless.
Let’s see now. If my interpretation of everything claimed in this thread is right, then out of 486 attorneys appointed since 1981.
Reagan supposedly fired 93 – no Google data to confirm figures.
Bush the Elder supposedly fired 93 – no Google data to confirm figures.
Clinton supposedly fired 93 – The only one I could find evidence for on Google.
Bush the Younger fired 93. No Google data to confirm figures.
None of these firings (although only 3 plus 93 could actually be verified via Google) were eligible for mention in the Congressional report.
Total sackings ineligible for mention = 372/486
So we only have the 3 out of 486 previously mentioned in the report and from December 2006, 8 more by Bush the Younger as the only firings eligible for mention in terms of the report.
How’s everything so far.
Are we all singing from the same page of music? 
To clarify further (and why has the edit function been removed?)
In case anyone’s confused, of course their appointments carried over into the Bill Clinton administration. He couldn’t have fired them otherwise. But for that reason they became ineligible for inclusion in the report.
Do I hear a round of applause? 
Again, it isn’t about the firings or their numbers, but the reasons for them. And, by now, the lies and stonewallings about those reasons.
But if “But Clinton did it too!” is an absolute discussion-ending proposition for you, you’re welcome to it.
I think the best lesson out of this whole thing and the recent revelations about the FBI is that if a power is granted it will be abused. For that reason the separation of powers is the vital cog in the whole mechanism.
One of the things that has aroused even Republican members of the Senate is the attempt to bypass Senatorial confirmation of US attornies by use of the Patriot Act. A provision allows the AG to appoint temporary USA’s in emergency situations. Like when for some reason a terrorist action temporarily prevents the Senate from meeting. Such an emergency certainly does not now exist.
The FBI email snooping was another example of overreaching of the government misusing the Patriot Act.
This tells me that, as I and many others have maintained, that the USA Patriot Act is a flawed piece of legislation that makes easy and probably inevitable its abuse by the Executive branch. It is a complex law that consists mainly of modifications of and additions to numerous previous laws and yet was casually waved through the Congress even by Democrats.
Now the WH is retreating from its earlier position that the purge was Harriett Miers’ idea. They now say they don’t know whose idea it was. Story here.
You can fire them for no reason, and you can fire them for a good reason. But you can’t fire them for a bad reason, namely not doing their job in a sufficiently partisan way. This false equivalence to Clinton may keep the dittoheads in line, but it isn’t going to work for a lot of us.
Nicely put, BobLibDem!
I’ve noticed Tony Snow being a lot more circumspect in the last day or two. Obviously unwilling to say things that he knows may become “nonoperative” in the next news cycle.
It would also be unwise to take snippets of posts from upthread and answer them selectively. Clinton’s firings were not the only ones remoed from the survey. So were the firings by Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II.
The “3 of 486” applies only to lawyers removed mid-term–not to the 99% of all lawyers removed at a change of office holder of the presidency in 1981, 1989, 1993, and 2001.
It doesn’t really matter whose idea it was. As the Republicans so helpfully keep pointing out … the President and the President alone has the power to appoint and remove United States Attorneys. That means this mess is his responsibility, not Harriet Myers’, not Karl Rove’s, and not Albero Gonzales’. His subordinates might have given him bad advice, but it was Bush who acted on it.
C’mon now. Do you expect him to read everything he signs?
Folks, we’ve got MacLean Stevenson playing Henry Blake as President. :eek:
There we have it: Aquila Be can’t find information by Googling it, so therefore it’s wrong. Also, he has no idea what the controversy is actually about, so therefore, there’s nothing to it.
From Brain Glutton’s link:
Umm, sorry, no, we wouldn’t put up with this crap from a middle schooler weaseling out of an infraction; it’s embarrassing that government officials can claim “hazy memories” about important decisions. If they lack in that capacity, they shouldn’t be entrusted with the job.