The scandal over the firings of US Attorneys continues to grow, and while I’ve been sitting this one out, some recent articles have pushed me off the sidelines. (For background and a round-up, see Joe Gandelman’s post.)
There’s a growing chorus of “… but that’s just what’s done! Look, see! Bill did it, too!” from defenders — and there’s some truth to that.
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration and its defenders like to point out that President Bush isn’t the first president to fire U.S. attorneys and replace them with loyalists.
While that’s true, the current case is different. Mass firings of U.S. attorneys are fairly common when a new president takes office, but not in a second-term administration. Prosecutors are usually appointed for four-year terms, but they are usually allowed to stay on the job if the president who appointed them is re-elected.
Having witnessed wholesale cleansings of staff by incoming politicians (at a vastly lower, and more local, level than the Department of Justice), I see this as a pretty common — if ugly — practice, and it strikes me as a technicality to object to these, specifically, because of their timing.
But the need to point to Clinton (a common symptom of one form of PDS) has apparently overtaken rationality, as evidenced by the Wall Street Journal’s editorialists (Opinion Journal):
As it happens, Mrs. Clinton is just the Senator to walk point on this issue of dismissing U.S. attorneys because she has direct personal experience. In any Congressional probe of the matter, we’d suggest she call herself as the first witness–and bring along Webster Hubbell as her chief counsel.
As everyone once knew but has tried to forget, Mr. Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton’s choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno–or Mr. Hubbell–gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.
Evidently, Hubbell was Bill and Hillary’s choice. As in… the president and his wife’s choice.
So — does that mean that we can expect some examination of other spouses? Perhaps Nancy and Laura knew, and/or were associated with, Justice appointees during their co-habitation of the White House?
After all, the wives are always in it up to their necks. Did we learn nothing from Watergate?
I think one of the differences is that
(1) neither Nancy nor Laura took as open a role as Hillary did during Bill’s administration (especially the first term), and
(2) neither Nancy nor Laura are currently contending to be the next President.
OK, so that makes two differences. Sue me.
~EdT.
Ah. So this would be more like a manifestation of Pre-PDS?
Previously Manifested Syndrome.
~EdT.
Outside of the Wall Street Journal editorial page’s factless assertion, what evidence do you have that iHubbell was specifically selected by Hillary Clinton?
Maybe you should have stayed on the sidelines until you’re actually interested in doing some work
The argument isn’t very difficult; there’s a good chance the attorneys were fired for either prosecuting the wrong party during the election season or failing to prosecute Democrats during that season.
So, what TBogg said. You might be better off on the sidelines until you know the plays.
tbogg —
Thank you so much for your enlightened comment and suggestion. And had I actually been making (or even defending) such an assertion, I’m sure I’d have found it very useful.
Alas…
Polimom,
As you can see from the last couple of comments, there are plenty of folks who just can’t deal with satire . . . . . and plenty of folks who are still hyperprotective of Bill and Hillary.
Best to ignore such humorless trolls.
FYI, Wikipedia has a nice write-up on Web Hubble including his conviction in Federal Court in 1994 for mail fraud and tax evasion in connection with the billing records of the Rose Law Firm (he pled guilty).
Gov. Bill appointed him Chief Justice of the Arkansas Supreme court in 1983, and later Prez Bill appointed him Associate Attorney General. He was Hillary’s partner at the Rose Law Firm for many years.
If there are those who for whatever reason, wish to believe that Hillary didn’t even express an opinion on whether Web Hubble would be a good guy–their guy–at the DOJ, well, let them wallow in their credulity. Best not to even try to introduce the real world to them, even in jest.
They can’t deal with it.
Speaking of “wives”, have you read Jon Swift’s Martha Mitchell piece! It made my day!
slate —
Jon Swift is my most reliable source for serious conservative opinion, and it is to him that I turn when I don’t feel like reading or researching (but want to come off the sidelines anyway).
His latest post was, in fact, part of my research for this one.
Of course Bush could have really done what Clinton did….. like fire them and then get the FBI to investigate and discredit them…..
travelgate anyone….
Oh and whose fingerprints were on that one?
Wow — Polimom, you ought to gather up all these comments, and write a book. You should at least be as famous, as, well somebody.
BTW, I think I have found a new strain of PDS. The symptoms are that “Everybody Knows” something, therefore I am naming it
Widely Manifested Derangement syndrome
Since I am positive that this is a world-wide epidemic, those searching for WMDs in Iraq should have no problem finding it.
Of course, since you’ll also find WMDs in the USofA, maybe Murtha is right, and we need to redeploy the troops back home to deal with it.
~EdT.
For me, it’s not so much the timing, or that Bill Did It Too, but the how and why of the firings that seem questionable. The How is related to the obscure provision in the Patriot Act that allows USAs to be appointed without Senate approval, and The Why seems to have changed from “poor performance” to “it’s routine, standard procedure”. Emerging information is starting to suggest that there were very specific political reasons for the firings that had nothing to do with cleaning house for a new presidency or performance shortcomings.