<p>I DON’T think Republicans lie more than Democrats (and it was Clinton’s lies to cover up his murders that laid the groundwork for the Iraq mess we are in today.) But I do think the President’s gang does, and most of the world is so used to it, from Madame Secretary Mendaciousness to Loose-Lipped Libby, that, other than its use of military muscle, the U.S. has become a laughingstock in international circles.</p>
<p>The issue is the out of the norm of the letting go of these people. Mini others besides clinton did this, gw1 did it too. The problem is the phone calls, emails and attempted unethical contacts the wh, and certain gopers had that attempted to encourage court actions (our state election for one) where none was warranted. Especially before elections. Sort of using the justice system for a swift boat ad. Doesn’t matter if it’s true, just get it out there before elections. Now, it’s payback time. These 8 basically didn’t pursue frivolous lawsuits against the Dems in certain states. These 8 basically followed the will of the people, not the party. Cutting them loose now after it comes out the gopers were attempting to tamper with the legal system to swing the election… well, taint right. is it? </p>
<p>Yea, bc a bad guy, but he’s outta there. I am more concerned about those in office than out. Tom Delay, can’t hurt me anymore and it still makes me sad to see Duke Cunningham on the history channel. What a shame. </p>
<p>they goofed again, they just make bc administration look that much better. Anymore it seems as if none of them will make it through the next year and a half.</p>
<p>“Mini others besides clinton did this, gw1 did it too.”</p>
<p>GWI did NOT package a series of lies to cover up genocide and have his CIA director (later GWB’s as well) sell them to members of his own party.</p>
<p>I’m just waiting to hear W say, “Heck of a job Gonzalez.”</p>
<p>BTW I do think this Republican White House lies more than any other. (Well, OK, except maybe Nixon. Oh, and, ah, Iran-Contra.) </p>
<p>The Dems would never be organized enough to think up these whoppers.</p>
<p>This story started with this issue, related to the quote directly below. An aide to Specter (who had been placed in his office to appease people about Specter’s unwelcome independence from his party’s line on other issues), apparently unbeknownst to Specter himself, slips in a provision to the Patriot Act indicating that the President can name USAs indefinitely without Senate confirmation:</p>
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</p>
<p>As a result of the underhanded change to the Patriot Act, some appointments were made and attempted with the most obvious of political motivations and attempts at payback to political hack loyalists.</p>
<p>And then the story moved on to the fact that these firings were manifestly politically motivated:</p>
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</p>
<p>For those arguing this is business as usual or other Administrations did this too, have you lost all ability to distinguish or tell the truth? Don’t you approach any of this with any skepticism? If this nation is becoming a bunch of people who will bicker entirely along partisan lines and say black is white when it serves their party, we are screwed.</p>
<p>You may argue that, hey the president is in his rights to do this, is he not? Yes, he is. But don’t you think that a principle of fair game, due process, and the ideal of an independent justice system is thereby lost? If your answer is merely, they’re all crooks and liars and this all liberal media bias and what does it really matter given that fact, then yes indeed we are completely screwed as a nation.</p>
<p>Aw mini are you having a bad day? </p>
<p>“GWI did NOT package a series of lies to cover up genocide and have his CIA director (later GWB’s as well) sell them to members of his own party.”</p>
<p>You knew what I meant. I mean come on I get it, I get it. It’s a different subject. </p>
<p>You don’t shout out “Bill Clinton lied” during sex do you? 
</p>
<p>There’s obsessive and complusive and then there’s your version of written tourettes.</p>
<p>I wonder if they form a Justice Union. Nothing beats working at will. doing your job and still getting fired w/o cause.</p>
<p>“You knew what I meant. I mean come on I get it, I get it. It’s a different subject.”</p>
<p>There are lies that result in political hacks getting fired and replaced by other political hacks, and lies that cover up the deaths of a million people, and provide the ground work for a nation to go to war in the Middle East. If you going to talk about lies, and then charge another President with lies he (GW1) didn’t commit, I think you should get yourself a sense of scale.</p>
<p>“You don’t shout out “Bill Clinton lied” during sex do you?”</p>
<p>You didn’t answer my question. </p>
<p>“I think you should get a sense of scale”</p>
<p>I own a scale and I stand on it every other day. I get a fine sense for it. thank you.</p>
<p>Well, then I think you should show it.</p>
<p>As for Bill, I wish he’d spent much more time with Monica.</p>
<p>A Justice Union? Hmm, sounds like a great theme for a Saturday morning TV show. “Forced out against their will…banded together…fight crime…save their country…”</p>
<p>The ousted USA’s already include the JAG officer who was the model for Tom Cruise’s character in “A Few Good Men”, so I think this is a natural. They just need some masks and capes and a few good superpowers or some high tech gadgets. Or maybe: “If you can find them, you can hire–the Justice Union.” Then they just need a van and a plan to come together.</p>
<p>Seriously though, one very disturbing thing is that much of the ouster was plotted on email that was sent by White House officials using not their official email addresses, but addresses given to them by the Republican National Committee. This suggests first and foremost, that to the people using this address, the firings were a campaign issue and not government business.</p>
<p>But more importantly, why on earth was sensitive government business, which personnel issues are, discussed on GWB43.com ? What other sensitive government business is being discussed on RNC servers rather than government servers?</p>
<p>“Well, then I think you should show it.”</p>
<p>I do everytime I read one of your posts. Then it becomes gee is he having a bad day? Let’s see what mini puts next? </p>
<p>I have the sense not to take you so seriously all the time because when you fall into one of these ongoing rants OD(excuse me expressions) away from the topic at hand, in which you might have a valid point, but using the Bush doctrine of repeating something often enough, to make it so, that it becomes comical. </p>
<p>Yes, I am sorry to say you’ve repeated that statement so often and so out of place it’s unfortunately become funny. Was that your intention? To make it a joke? </p>
<p>You wrap your pet issue around yourself as some sort of coat of superiority at times without realizing we can still see your butt because it doesn’t cover you well enough cause you pull it so hard around the front that it leaves your butt to the wind. </p>
<p>I may lack sense, heck, I may even be stupid. For the most part I enjoy reading your posts. However, you lose me when you tie everything to BC and Iraq. </p>
<p>I could say Cheese. and you’d jump in there’s 500,000 children that won’t get any cheese in iraq cause they’re all dead… Does that make me want to care? honestly? are you making people care or feel indifferent about it?</p>
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<p>The appointments of USAs are politics not government. While part of DOJ, do you think that the USA for the SD of NY takes much direction from the AAG of the Criminal Division?</p>
<p>Folks get over it. This is a false issue; bread and circuses. Focus on the FBI lies and the Patriot Act. Demand your elected officials do something about those things.</p>
<p>I like what you said TSdad, but it was honorable U.S. Attorneys like John McKay that were doing an excellent job without compromising the ideals of justice. I suspect that McKay is no great fan of the Patriot Act because he’s clear-thinker and a person of much integrity. Remember, he prosecuted Resham, the would-be millenium bomber and got Resham to “turn” on other terrorist plots. Of course, the appointment of USAs is political, but that the Bushies would be so dumb to handle it in such an off-hand and arrogant way is the just the most recent evidence to me of the dangers of the current ‘imperial presidency.’ Indict Doc Hastings, Heather Wilson and Pete Domenici!!!</p>
<p>I spent 15 years in DOJ in three different agencies. I am embarrassed.</p>
<p>tsdad:</p>
<p>In response to your initial question about why the Dems are focusing on this:</p>
<p>In the world of politics, there are things you can use as weapons against your opposition and things that are harder to use, or that you cannot use effectively, at all. With the FBI issue, political strategists are likely to realize, very quickly, that the average American doesn’t care. The average American is likely to conclude that only terrorists are being affected and, since he is not a terrorist, such violations of the law do not affect him and are a good thing.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if the Dems can get across the idea that people are being prosecuted for political reasons or, more likely, that the current administration is manipulating the justice system so that their cronies can avoid prosecution, it hits people on an issue that many feel very passionately about: corruption in government or, to put it more bluntly, the fear that public officials are on the take.</p>
<p>So, it has to do with what issues are likely to gain one political advantage.</p>
<p>“political hacks getting fired and replaced by other political hacks”</p>
<p>US Attorneys are political appointees, but most of them, and these 8 in particular, are not hacks. You might be surprised by the amount of integrity that can be found in the USA’s offices and the federal courts, even under this administration, partly because it really is impossible to closely supervise all of the USA’s. The fact that these 8 were fired for insufficient party loyalty tells you, at a minimum, that there are W appointees out there who are obeying the law instead of toeing the party line. I was initially skeptical about some of W’s judicial appointees because it was clear they got their posts in part through making powerful friends…but once on the bench, many of those judges have been as independent and forthright about the law as you could ask any judge to be. I don’t think dismissing all these attorneys as a bunch of interchangeable “political hacks” is justified.</p>
<p>Tar</p>
<p>You are absolutely correct. It’s all political.</p>
<p>That being said, I don’t think that most folks other than those who populate the left wing blogosphere care a bit about this week’s attack by the left on the Bush administration.</p>
<p>VoxDei:</p>
<p>Impossible to say. After all, the Dems aren’t going after the right-wingers now, are they? They’re going after the swing vote. </p>
<p>Only the polls can tell.</p>
<p>(Note: When I use the word “political,” I don’t use it in the pejorative sense in which you used it.)</p>
<p>Part of the problem the Bush folks are having on this issue is that they have gotten Democratic and Republican Senators (and House members) mad. Why?</p>
<p>a) They lied to them about the process underlying the firings and the reasons for the firings. This is established by documents released by the White House.</p>
<p>b) The process was intended to cut out the Senators, not only in confirmation hearings, but also in the usual process involving senatorial courtesy, that is, consultation with Senators about who to appoint for their state. This is also established in documents released by the White House.</p>
<p>c) The Patriot Act provision that allowed the WH to put in new USAs without confirmation was snuck in, and documents again establish that this was the WH’s intention.</p>
<p>Nothing makes a Senator more angry than being played. They see themselves as members of a co-equal branch of government (and will remind folks that Congress is described in Article I of the Constitution) and when the executive branch ignores them or plays them like chumps, they get mad, especially when </p>
<p>d) Members of the legislative branch are already upset with the Bush administration for moving too much power to the executive branch and not giving them full and correct information about many, many other matters. I’m sure you know what sort of things I’m talking about!!!</p>
<p>So, yes, this is political, but it’s the sort of politics that the founders expected and wanted – a classic tug of war between members of different branches of government – with the institutional players seeking power and trying to keep the other branches in check.</p>