Slow Drip Massacre: Why?

12:10 pm EST March 3rd, 2007 | News | 7 Comments

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick:

This kind of purge is legal but unprecedented. A recent report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service revealed that since 1981, no more than three U.S. attorneys had ever been forced out under similar circumstances. And now we have six in a day? What’s going on?

What sort of colossal error in judgment led the DOJ to can a bunch of perfectly loyal and capable prosecutors, name permanent “interim” replacements under a sleazy legal loophole, then publicly impugn those who’d departed with the claim that they’d been fired for “performance-related” reasons? Did they really think nobody would notice? That nobody would care? Does some incredibly cunning long-term objective justify the short-term fallout? Or was this simply a case of bumbling incompetence?

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7 Responses to “Slow Drip Massacre: Why?”

  1. Jay says:
    March 3, 2007 at 1:40 pm

    So now somebody is ‘impugned’ simply because it has been said that they were dismissed for job performance reasons?

    And apparently, there’s no precedent for taking office, and shit-canning every US attorney in the country as was the case in 1993. But firing 6-7 US attorneys? Scandalous!!

    What a joke.

  2. Oliver Willis says:
    March 3, 2007 at 2:00 pm

    It’s one thing to remove them right after you’re elected to office, its a whole other to disappear them 6 years into your presidency.

  3. Duros62 says:
    March 3, 2007 at 2:20 pm

    Did they really think nobody would notice? That nobody would care? Does some incredibly cunning long-term objective justify the short-term fallout? Or was this simply a case of bumbling incompetence?

    I’m gonna have to go with the last one, there. Historical precedent and all that.

    …its a whole other to disappear them 6 years into your presidency.

    That was my point a couple of days ago.

  4. James E. Powell says:
    March 3, 2007 at 5:07 pm

    Removing US Attorneys when the presidency changes hands is standard operating procedure.

    My guess is that the White House thought no one would care. Or, more accurately, that no one but a load of people who are utterly unable to affect the president’s political standing would care.

    The Bush/Cheney Junta was born of the notion that one can take and exercise power without concern for “the public,” who are largely apathetic, or “the media,” who are employed by the same corporate ruling class which employs Bush/Cheney.

  5. James E. Powell says:
    March 3, 2007 at 5:08 pm

    In the above post, the word “Removing” should be “Replacing.” Sorry for the error.

  6. midderpidge says:
    March 3, 2007 at 7:28 pm

    There is a difference, Bush & Co. can avoid the confirmation process to appoint cronies.

  7. Jay says:
    March 4, 2007 at 1:16 pm

    Removing US Attorneys when the presidency changes hands is standard operating procedure.

    Firing all 93 US attorneys is not standard operating procedure. Clinton’s move was unprecedented.

    There is a difference, Bush & Co. can avoid the confirmation process to appoint cronies.

    So he’s firing attorney’s he appointed and possibly reappointed simply so he could install ‘cronies’ to serve for 2 years? One would assume that if a Democrat is elected they’ll have all these US attorney’s replaced anyway.