As explained by others here already, these appointments are traditionally (with, at least the prior 3 administrations) done at the beginning of a President’s first term. So, when a President comes in, the attorneys are asked to tender resignations and new appointments are made. When re-elected, a President will generally not ask for resignations but, instead, keep these attorneys on. Until now, if an attorney was removed, it was due to job performance or some legal/ethical problem with that person, thus why they tried to say these firings were based on job performance. When it came out that these attorneys were rated high in their performance, the next step was to create the ridiculous talking point you repeated here (while also conveniently ignoring that a Republican president had set this precedent and had done so without the same level of political game-playing and didn’t do something as stupid as firing people without cause. This is particularly stupid in the age of email and digital information that is not easily “lost”.)

The second point is that these were not “a dozen or so Democratic or liberal state attorneys”. These were Republican appointees. The sad part is that they were fired for actually doing their jobs in prosecuting corruption where they found it (unfortunately, for some, it was Republicans they found doing it) or not bringing forth charges against Democrats based on flimsy evidence. These people were neither Democrats nor liberals. They were originally selected (supposedly) because they were both Republican and qualified for their jobs. But, because they were U.S. Attorneys, first, and Republicans, second, they were taken out and replaced with people who the administration felt would be good lap dogs, regardless of qualifications and regardless of what the laws say.

I listen to Savage for about 15 minutes every night as I drive home from work.

He’s an absolute “nutter”.

But I have to wonder why his audience, well, IS his audience.

Comment by ron

It’s spelled “Schlongman”…

Strikes me that his behavior was unusual and almost certainly illegal. A thorough investigation should establish whether he should be dismissed or indicted and whether the “ethics” of his behavior justifies the suspension or removal of his license to practice law.

As with Mr. Libby’s behavior, the best cure for the Schlozman’s and von Spakovsky’s of this world is sunlight and a demonstration that the law applies to them, just as it enforces the rights of those they would trample on.

When the Democrats take over the White House in 2009,

EVERY ONE of the people appointed or hired by Goodling, Taylor, Rove, Gonzales, etc. needs to be FIRED, PURGED, EXCRETED….

Because EVERY ONE of them hired by these TRAITORS is one also…

You might have your head screwed on a little too tight.

No matter what the topic for some reason Bush and Bush supporters fall back on the sandbox excuse of pointing at the kid sitting next to them and saying “Ya, but Johnny did it first…” When i hear this it only reinforces my impression that this is the most immature crowd to ever hold power in this country and they are supported by the most immature folks in our population.

If you want to make an argument pro or con about the actions of Mr. Bush, please, please, try to do so by only using the name of Mr. Bush. Does this man ever stand on his own?

“The guy was in the wrong department. He should have cleaned out the State Department and CIA of Democrats and Al Qaeda operatives like Plame.

He was wasting his time at Justice.”

Comment by Frank J — June 15, 2007 @ 1:22 pm

Hey Frank — I know you wingnuts have a real hard time with novel concepts like truth and reality — but bottom line is Valerie Plame was a covert NOC working on stopping the proliferation of WMD’s — u know — the bad things that could be used to blow up your fascist, goose-stepping ass? Moron.

You’re right, CT. We need bad Americans as well as good Americans in those USA positions.

*eyes rolling*

Comment by ron — June 15, 2007 @ 1:46 pm

I’d agree, ron, but “douchebag” is so much more fun to say.

I can hear it now: “Waaaaaaaah! They fired USAs for politcial reasons! Even the ones Bush installed running end-around Senate confirmation! Waaaaaaah!”