The Real Reason for the Attorney Firings

Kevin Drum does a nice job cutting through the fog. For a start, the "Clinton did it too" argument, always the first bullet in Republican talking points, doesn't fly. As many have pointed out, installing a fresh set of U.S. attorneys at the start of the administration is no big deal. Nor would it be a big deal to fire 7 attorneys for performance reasons. Drum also notes that it would not be such a big deal either to fire 7 attorneys for "insufficient commitment to Bush administration policies". No, this is not the issue. The real issue is corruption, using the judicial arm to protect your own party and harass opponents.

Drum runs down the list:

"David Iglesias: Didn't bring indictments against some local Democrats prior to the
2006 election. John McKay: Failed to invent voter fraud cases that might have prevented a Democrat from winning the 2004 governor's race in Washington. Carol
Lam: Doing too good a job prosecuting trainloads of Republicans in the wake of the Duke Cunningham scandal. Daniel Bogden and Paul Charlton: In the midst of investigations targeting current or former Republican members of Congress when they were fired."

He could add the case of Bud Cummins, who was fired simply to give a job to a friend of Karl Rove's. The Justice Department admitted as much.

When you look into the partisan nature of corruption investigations, the Bush administration strategy starts to make sense. A study found seven times more investigations of Democrats than Republicans at the local level (262-37) since Bush took power, despite roughly equal numbers of elected officials from either party. Clearly, there has been a blatant politicization of judicial investigations, that Republicans can then use as fodder for attack ads. Vintage Rove. And any U.S. attorneys that get in the way should be swept off the board.

By the way, this tactic is also vintage Robert Mugabe, and a host of other banana Republic thugs...