Via Balloon Juice:
The Commissar has handily assembled authoritative statements from every major official at the DOJ denying a significant role in creating the list of axed Attorneys. It just appeared one day under their noses and then some mysterious, unexplained force compelled them to act on it. I tell you, that’s pretty spooky. If it weren’t for my doggone empiricism I would join them lest the List grow angry and smite me.
Reminds me of Ash’s disembodied hand in Evil Dead II. Groovy!
The entire executive branch serves at the pleasure of the President, and it’s standard practice to replace the entire slate all at once whenever a new President takes office.
If they had just been up front about this from the beginning, I don’t think it would have been a problem.
But this wasn’t a new President. It’s not common for the entire slate of U.S. Attorneys to be replaced at the beginning of a President’s second term, and the whole slate was not targeted. The fact that they made up reasons (incompetence) for firing the U.S. Attorneys indicates that they did, in fact, have a reason, but they felt the reason was not palatable.
To my knowledge, nobody has yet fessed up to starting the ball rolling, and nobody seems to know who did.
Even if they screwed up at first, they could have come clean, saying “George Bush just felt like tossing these nine competent U.S. Attorneys because he could. No other reason. We lied about it at first, because we didn’t think everybody else would think that was a very good reason. But, since everybody has their panties in a twist over it; there you have it, I’m George Bush, that’s how I roll, I fire competent people that I appointed because it makes me feel all warm and tingly.”
Instead, it’s looking a lot like these folks got axed for not ginning up enough “voter fraud” prosecutions against Democrats in swing states prior to the elections.
…Or for getting convictions of prominent Republican lawmakers.
They serve “at his pleasure”. But if he fires them, there is some accountability politically for him to have to deal with. If he comes off as a capricious little twit, or the changes appear to be bad for the country, then his approval might drop, etc. It’s called accountability. Instead, he did these firings for what the evidence appears to show to be political reasons, but didn’t want to pay a political price. So instead the Justice Department insinuated they were incompetent (they were fired for “performance reasons”.) This was demonstrably false based on good performance reports, and lack of much evidence that concerns about performance had been voiced except in rare instances. So yes, he can fire. But if he or his people go out of the way to slander the firees and say the terminations were for cause, then don’t be surprised if it looks bad. Presidential lying is bad, even when the president isn’t a Democrat and the lie isn’t about a blowjob.
Isn’t this the same campaign apparatus (ROVE) who defeated quadriplegic Senator Max Cleland (GA) with a draft-dodging right-winger Saxby Chambliss by accusing Cleland of being a pinko traitor since he “questioned” the President’s decision in invading Iraq. Truth, scientific theory and public opinion are all just items to be manipulated.
When will THESE People — Bush, Cheney, Rove, Gonzalez et al.. begin to pay the price instead of our brave men and women in the field.. and our children’s generation in the bill?
Too bad we don’t have a parliamentary system — or this crew would be walking the plank.. with REPUBLICAN Senators poking at them.
Where are the Lugars of old??
The post of US Attorney is considered a “political” appointment for a reason. Like other political appointments, though they have certain professional obligations, they are expected to do so to further the political program of the sitting President. In this regard, US Attorneys are no different from Cabinet members.
No one would be crying for someone’s head if the President suddenly fired a third of his Cabinet mid-term.
Perhaps the reason US attorneys aren’t typically fired at the beginning of a President’s second term is the same reason that the Cabinet isn’t typically replaced at the same point: there’s no need to. As long as the appointees are continuing to serve the President’s political program, it doesn’t matter if the President has started a second term in office.
But if a political appointee–be it a Cabinet member, a US attorney, or anyone else–should fail to do that, then I don’t see why it’s a big deal firing him–whether at the beginning of a term or in the middle of one. “Atypical” does not equate to “improper”.
So yes, it is certainly within the President’s prerogative to fire any member of the Executive Branch at any point in time–especially a political appointment such as US Attorney.
My point is, if they had just been up front about why they were firing them, I don’t think nearly as big a stink would have been raised. The sin wasn’t the firings, or even the reasons for them; it was the choice to lie about the reasons.
Is it really the job of the U.S. Attorneys to further the president’s “political program”? Really? Doug, or any lawyer, can I get a ruling on this? I thought it was their job to enforce the law. For instance, largely the president’s “political program” was stretching or misapplying election laws to try to exclude the poor and minorities who generally lean Democrat. This has resulted in only a couple of successful prosecutions, which have been thrown out. His “political program” has been to enhance the electoral chances of Republicans, nothing more. Why should that be the function of the Justice Department?
stretches the imagination to define that as JUSTICE