Say Anything Blog

Yes, I said all.  Of course that was the previous President.

Attorney General Janet Reno fired all 93 U.S. attorneys, a very unusual practice. Republicans charged the Clintonites made the move to take U.S. Attorney Jay Stephens off the House Post Office investigation of Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski. The network response: ABC and CBS never mentioned it. CNN’s World News and NBC Nightly News provided brief mentions, with only NBC noting the Rosty angle. Only NBC’s Garrick Utley kept the old outrage, declaring in a March 27 “Final Thoughts” comment: “Every new President likes to say `Under me, it’s not going to be politics as usual.’ At the Justice Department, it looks as if it still is.”

This week we’ve watched the media go into a slow burn over the firings of less than ten percent of what Clinton did:

The chief aide to U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned amid revelations that President George W. Bush’s White House staff initiated the decision to fire federal prosecutors.

The Justice Department announced the resignation of Kyle Sampson, who was Gonzales’s chief of staff. Sampson may be called to testify by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are demanding to know more about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys. Democrats have likened the dismissals to a political purge.

``U.S. attorneys have always been above politics, and this administration has blatantly manipulated the U.S. attorney system to serve its political needs,’’ Senator Charles Schumer of New York said at a news conference in Washington today. Schumer said Sampson’s departure ``does not take the heat off the attorney general. In fact, it raises the temperature.’’

US Attorney’s have always been above politics?  What is that guy smoking. 

In Bill Clinton’s case he didn’t have people in place ready to take over.  I think the Bush administration is already filling those positions.  Bill Clinton barely had an Attorney General after floundering for a while.  I think I would have preferred Kimba Wood ex-bunny to Janet Reno.

I read that the dissatisfaction with these US Attorneys has gone back a ways. Harriet Meyers was frustrated with all of their performances and wanted them fired.

The start of the process that eventually saw seven US Attorneys fired last December (and another earlier) began with Harriet Miers, the White House counsel who had briefly been a Supreme Court nominee, according to the Washington Post. Unhappy with a lack of progress in fighting voter fraud, Miers requested through aides that Alberto Gonzales fire all 93 prosecutors at once after the 2004 elections, a move the Attorney General considered too disruptive:

I have to agree that the lack of investigation in voter fraud is a disgrace.  An illegal vote is every bit as important as a person who was disallowed his right to vote.  In effect if a leftie votes illegally he’s canceling out my vote and in effect taking away my vote.