I haven't written much on the fired US Attorneys 'scandal', mainly because, unless there is evidence that any of them were fired in order to block an investigation, there seems to be a major lack of scandalous actions in this 'scandal'. So I read Charles Krauthammer's column yesterday on Real Clear Politics, and if you want my opinion and thoughts, there it is. A few excerpts.
WASHINGTON -- Alberto Gonzales has to go. I say this with no pleasure -- he's a decent and honorable man -- and without the slightest expectation that his departure will blunt the Democratic assault on the Bush administration over the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. In fact, it will probably inflame their bloodlust, which is why the president might want to hang on to Gonzales at least through this crisis. That might be tactically wise. But in time, and the sooner the better, Gonzales must resign.
Emphasis on the "tactically wise." The partisan witch hunt will continue and flourish with the presumed guilt (of what?) once Gonzales leaves. So get through the witch hunt, then be done with him.
And why did Gonzales have to claim that the firings were done with no coordination with the White House? That's absurd.
Exactly. Everyone in the White House from Bush on down was and should have been involved with the discussions and decisions - as they should be.
The Bush administration fired eight. Democrats are charging this was done for reasons of politics, and that politics have no place in the legal system. This is laughable. U.S. attorneys are appointed by the president -- and, by tradition, are recommended by home state politicians of the same party, not by a group of judges or a committee of the American Bar Association. Which makes their appointment entirely political.
Yes, it does. And political appointees can be political removals just as easily.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. Pursuing voter fraud is not, as The New York Times pretends, a euphemism for suppressing the vote of minorities and poor people. It is a mechanism for suppressing the vote of (among other phantoms) dead people. Conservatives have a healthy respect for the opinion of dead people -- conservatives revere tradition, which Chesterton once defined as "the democracy of the dead'' -- but they draw the line at posthumous voting.
Mr. Krauthammer mentions my favorite character in this farce, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York.
It's nice to see that Sen. Charles Schumer, who is using this phony scandal to raise funds for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, has suddenly adopted a Platonic view of justice.
Speaking of scandals not pursued aggressively by US Attorneys, is there any doubt that, had the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee had staffers commit identity theft to illegally obtain the financial information of an opposing candidate the media uproar would have forced the Senator in charge of the committee to resign? Welcome to the party, Mr. Schumer.
As for the evidence,
There is only one impermissible reason for presidential intervention: to sabotage an active investigation. That is obstruction of justice. Until the Democrats come up with any real evidence of that -- and they have not -- this affair remains a pseudo-scandal.
What this really is about is an aggressive Democrat-led legislature trying to pry control of this facet of the Justice Department from what they perceive as Mr. Bush's cold dead hands. Those hands are neither, and they should realize that usurping the powers of, and thus weakening, the President will likely have unhappy consequences in the future.
