Furtive Glances - "Too MUch On My Plate" Edition

Well, since returning from the Big East Tournament I've been exceedingly busy.  The medical practice, sure, but a number of other office related issues and family projects have intervened.  Besides which, my piano lessons have resumed after a holiday hiatus.

I know, excuses, excuses.  Sigh.  Let's have a look at what's been going on lately.

• The fired US Attorneys: This has been a cause celebre in the leftosphere over the last several days, starting with the NY Times and Washington Post carrying water for outraged liberals publishing stories a few days ago detailing the outrage.  This led to AG Alberto Gonzales holding a press conference admitting that "mistakes were made."  Of course, what he was referring to was the incomplete information presented to Congress rather than the whether the firings should have occurred, but that didn't stop the NY Times from misleadingly insinuate that interpretation the next day.

WASHINGTON, March 13 — Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales under criticism from lawmakers of both parties for the dismissals of federal prosecutors, insisted Tuesday that he would not resign, but said, “I acknowledge that mistakes were made here.”

The mea culpa came as Congressional Democrats, who are investigating whether the White House was meddling in Justice Department affairs for political reasons, demanded that President Bush and his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, explain their roles in the firings.

Gee, I can't imagine that the President, who appointed them in the first place, and Karl Rove, a very close advisor to Mr. Bush, wouldn't have anything to do with this.  So why bother asking?  Lo and behold, and email regarding the firings was located.

I'm with James Joyner on this one.

So, here’s my understanding of the scandal:

• The president expresses displeasure that some of his political appointees are not doing their job.
• His White House Counsel suggests firing everybody, whether they’re doing their job or not.
• His senior strategist says not to do that.
• Staffers go through the records and identify the 7 of 93 prosecutors (7.53%) who aren’t prosecuting a whole category of violations of federal law.
• The Attorney General fires those 7 political appointees.

Am I missing something here?

Were these firings “politically motivated”? I suppose so, although only under the broadest definition of that term. Then again, they are political appointees, not career civil servants. Presumably, they have that status because it was understood that U.S. Attorneys are policy makers, assigned to not only carry out the law but respond to the orders of the Chief Executive of the United States.

If they were being fired because they were prosecuting the president’s friends, that would be a problem. Similarly, if they were fired because they refused to prosecute the president’s enemies, that would be a problem. If the president or the AG were “suggesting” that specific people be singled out for selective prosecution of crimes, that would also be of concern.

From what I’m reading here, though, it sounds like these people were simply refusing to investigate and prosecute the generic class of voter fraud cases. Why can’t political appointees have their appointments stripped for that?

That didn't stop my Senator, John Sununu, from opining that AG Gonzales should be fired.  I'm just getting to this, and I'm already tired of this story, a non-scandal manufactured to look like a scandal.  In such a situation one figure is always front and center.

• Via Ace of Spades, who used vacuum extraction to deliver a David Brooks column from the womb of the NY Times Select editorials:

The Democratic leaders don't want to be for immediate withdrawal because it might alienate the centrists, and they don't want to see out the surge because that would alienate the base. What they want to do is be against Bush without accepting responsibility for any real policy, so they have concocted a vaporous policy of distant withdrawal that is divorced from realities on the ground.

Say what you will about President Bush, when he thinks a policy is right, like the surge, he supports it, even if it's going to be unpopular. The Democratic leaders, accustomed to the irresponsibility of opposition, show no such guts.

As a result, nobody loves them. Liberals recognize the cynicism of it all. Republicans know the difference between principled opposition and unprincipled posturing. Independents see just another group of politicians behaving like politicians.

What we get is foreign policy narcissism. The Democrats call it an Iraq policy, but it's really all about us.

Meanwhile, the Republicans in the Senate did the sensible thing and spiked this beast early.

• I think we can remove the "alleged" now.  Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has admitted to being the mastermind behind 9/11 as well as numerous other Al Qaeda plots, both executed and aborted.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, confessed at a Guantanamo Bay military hearing that he planned and funded that al-Qaeda operation and said he was involved in more than two dozen other terrorist acts around the world, according to documents released by the Pentagon yesterday.

In a rambling statement delivered Saturday to a closed-door military tribunal, Mohammed declared himself an enemy of the United States and claimed some responsibility for many of the major terrorist attacks on U.S. and allied targets over more than a decade. He said that he is at war with the United States and that the deaths of innocent people are an unfortunate consequence of that conflict.

Was he tortured in those secret CIA prisons?  Forgive me, but although I don't think we should be torturing even this scum, I'm having a tough time working up outrage over someone who would kill everyone on the eastern seaboard if he could.  Check out his statement on Daniel Pearl:

"I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan," Mohammed is quoted as saying in a transcript of a military hearing at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, released by the Pentagon.

"For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head," he added.

"Blessed right hand."

• The NCAA Tournament kicked off today.  My picks guesses are in the toilet, largely.  George Washington?  What was I thinking?  I mean, I went to Vanderbilt, for cryin' out loud.  Marquette's shooters were all blinded in one eye before the game started, apparently.  And Washington State was far too good a defensive team to lose to Oral Roberts.  My bad.

Comments

[Assistant Village Idiot]

I have had several concerns about Sununu's conservatism over the last year, but his ACU rating was still high. He's a very bright guy, and one of the few Senators who actually knows some science, so I don't want to jump to conclusions. His brilliant father did have the failing of being a bit of a glory hound, and maybe that is what we see here.

[Giacomo]

It's not at this point a matter of conservatism, I think. Honestly, I'm having a hard time figuring out why political appointee prosecutors who don't follow the administration's lead on points of emphasis like voter fraud and illegal immigration shouldn't be subject to removal. Was Pete Domenici's contact inappropriate? Sure, but censure him. Should that contact protect the USA from being replaced? No. So what is Sununu thinking?

[Assistant Village Idiot]

Well, let's assume he's got better information than we do, just for argument. One complaint against these judges is that they wouldn't go after voter fraud. Democrats consider that phrase Republican code for "minority vote suppression," and claim there is no widespread voter fraud. To them, it just seems like judges refusing to do something illegal or immoral or partisan.

I think the evidence of voter fraud is enormous, so I just naturally assume that Gonzales and the DoJ were asking these judges to just do their jobs and prosecute voter fraud.

Yet both could be true. Voter fraud could be real, and worthy of exposure and prosecution, but the specific way the administration is going about it could be over the line. Sununu could be condemning the acts, taking the higher ground, because he knows this to be the wrong way to run government. He might also hope that such high-mindedness will gain him credibility with Democrats. I think that's delusional - they will tell him how much credibility and respect he now has until the moment when it comes to a vote on something, at which point they will turn on him. But I can see how that temptation would always be there.

Or Sununu may know it is a futile gesture to bipartisanship but think it's the right thing anyway. I remain puzzled, but am trying to at least roll out a plausible explanation that gives him the benefit of the doubt. I retain a rooting interest in the St.Paul's School Advanced Studies Program graduates.