More Fun With Politix & Ideological Purges

The New York Times has picked up the ball & done a little digging of its own regarding the political cannibalization of the Justice Department's "moderate" Republicans in U.S. Attorney's offices across the country, "the ouster [of whom] has set off a furor in Washington that took the Bush administration by surprise. "

Bushco, of course, is exploiting a provision of the Patriot Act that no one in Congress seems to have read before passing it so hastily ~ namely, that replacements can be named without having to submit them for confirmation before Congress.

The strategy is rather simple & obvious to this Demon: Bushco's time is running out, political winds are blowing ill for the GOP, & a tightening of the reins is in order at all levels (see "Commissar's in Town" blog entry below, for just one example).

"The list of prosecutors who were targets was approved by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and the deputy attorney general, Paul J. McNulty, the day-to-day manager of the Justice Department since he was appointed in the fall of 2005.

"Under Mr. Gonzales, Mr. McNulty has become a powerful deputy with a wide-ranging portfolio. He was a United States attorney in Virginia, but he worked in Congress for more than a decade and was once legal counsel to the House majority leader. He is regarded in legal circles as more attuned to policy and politics than his predecessor, James B. Comey, a former career prosecutor in New York."

As a former prosecutor under the Carter administration noted, “It just doesn’t look right,” said James S. Brady, who was United States attorney in Western Michigan...'It compromises the credibility that justice is being dealt with fairly and impartially. There is a fear that politics have entered in life and death situations.”

Moreover, it seems that the prosecutors were driven out behind bogus & even potentially defamatory reasons, if not true. (Title bar). It is the case that, in America, just doing your job as well as you can given the circumstances & the resources at hand will not, generally speaking, save you from dismissal under the "American employment-at-will doctrine," which is precisely what Bushco cites. All of us can be fired for "any reason or no reason at all" in the absence of (surprisingly limited) federal & state statutory legal protections such as bans against discrimination or under the protections afforded by any applicable negotiated labor contracts. (You were wondering why pro-business cons & neo-cons have been so determined to undermine unions, weren't you?)

However, common sense tells ya that being deprived of a career & livelihood in which you've invested so much effort & time, without even being given an honest explanation for such a potentially devastating decision is outrageously unfair. Never mind when you hadn't gotten anything but good performance reviews to that point ~ & Congresspeople are calling you inquiring on the status of investigations into the hot-button issues in an upcoming election.

BTW, also today, Domenici crawled out of his incommunicado bunker long enough to admit he did call fired New Mexico prosecutor Iglesias, but of course it was for reasons completely unrelated to corruption investigations that would have helped the Grand Old Party in the last elections: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/04/AR2007030400507.html.

He had previously said of the brou-haha (potentially an ethics violation on his part): "I don't know what he [Iglesias] is talking about." Now he says it was just to have a friendly chat~no pressure ~

All stinks to high heaven, don't it, but would seem to fit the pattern of Bushco SOP ~ underhanded, secretive, arrogant. And very, very clumsy. Even to their own. Is the message here, "We're hunkering down for an all-out culture war, here & abroad, and there's no room at the inn for even moderate Republicans?

Centrist Democrats, take note, & plan accordingly. There will be no peace accords with the Bushco Nation, & further, a lot of us don't even want you to try anymore. Too much like sleeping with the enemy.