"I say that carefully"

What a joke. An NPR "expert," David Burnham, just said that Clinton fired ONE federal prosecutor. A baldfaced lie, one with plenty of contemporaneous refutation. Astounding.

QueensGuy retorts: The only astounding thing here is that you're buying into the latest nuance of Rove's discredited talking point, and citing an editorial as your source. Jeez, the "refutation" you cite is so far off base I almost don't know where to begin, so how about we just start off with some facts?

Presumably Mr. Burnham was referring to the one guy Clinton fired before the end of his four year term for choking a reporter.

But let me reply to the editorial just for fun anyway, assuming that what the author really meant was Clinton's en masse replacement of Bush-41-appointed US Attorneys who had already served their full term, but were historically replaced as "holdovers" in a more leisurely fashion. Was Clinton's replacement of US Attorneys done more speedily than the previous few administrations? Sure. So what? Are you really going to argue that either Whitewater or Rostenkowski (who was ultimately convicted) were insufficiently investigated as a result? Do you really see no meaningful distinction between speeding up the process of removing holdovers from a previous administration and firing your own appointee prior to the end of his term? This guy did. Too bad about him losing his job for not having forseen Rove's strategy.

Columbus Guy ripostes: I seek to elevate the tone of this debate. How shall I do it? I know: Bedwetter! Bedwetter!

Really, QueensGuy, this is beneath your ordinary level. From the disingenuous effort to disarm the fact that what clinton did was unprecedented ("in a more leisurely fashion" indeed) to the argument that poor Rostenkowski had already suffered enough, all fair minded folks are accustomed to better treatment from you. (BTW, if only I had known our gal harriet was behind this move way back when.)

QueensGuy parries: Ok, both you and the anonymous commenters have a point. Re-reading what I wrote, you're right, it's just a half-assed version of Crossfire. What happened was, I read your original post and said "wow, really, that I didn't know." Then opened the link and said, "oh, please, that's just spin! Based on that crap you call a man a liar? How could you, CG?" On reflection, I still believe there is a huge difference between replacing the other party's appointee and replacing your own, and only the latter counts as "firing"; but reasonable minds could disagree on the semantics. Re Rostenkowski, my point was that while there may have been smoke, there was no fire, given that Clinton appointed a prosecutor who went ahead and, you know, prosecuted ol' Danny-boy. On a broader level, I have lost any patience I may ever have had for the "but, but, Clinton did..." line of moral-relativist argument, but we can save that for another day.

Now back to the subject -- and one anon. commenter was right, linking ain't argument. I hear from friends who've worked at the justice dept. that there really is an expectation there that the us atty's won't be treated like other political appointees, in the sense that they can make decisions about who and when to charge, prosecute, plea-bargain, etc. without having to answer to the president, barring really exceptional circumstances. In fact, I'm acquainted with a registered democrat who was an acting us atty (that's what they call you when your term expires, ahem) for six years under Bush. Why was he kept around so long? I assumed it was because he wasn't a political hack and did a great job. Respecting quality work and the independence of prosecutors was one of the things I had admired about this administration. I'm considering revising my judgment, but the jury's still out.

Presumably that expectation of independence is why the justice dept felt the need to give the initial -- bullshit -- answer that this batch were let go for performance-related reasons. If that's changing now, there's absolutely nothing illegal, nor even immoral, about it, though it is an incredibly bad idea. The us atty's are in the executive branch, and answer to the executive. Fine. I think micromanagement would make for far worse governance, in that every mildly controversial prosecution will (rightly) be scrutinized by the opposing party for political influence, and the judgment of people who are not professional prosecutors will be substituted for the judgment of professionals, leading to far greater inefficiencies and likely less justice. But probably no crimes will result. Even if a New Mexico us atty was let go because of insufficient zeal in chasing a democratic voter fraud scandal, no criminal convictions will follow, no matter what your least-favorite senator may say, unless someone was so mind-numbingly stupid as to first threaten him with firing. But does that ridiculous possibility make enough smoke to warrant congressional hearings? Sure. And when the atty general gives idiotic answers to congress, does that multiply the amount of smoke? No doubt. Which is why people like Spector are so pissed off -- the administration created its own "scandal" out of simple hubris. (As a reminder, see here for what should have been said.)