Friday, March 09, 2007

Congress back on duty

Oversight. Gotta love it.

Within a week it emerged that as many as a half-dozen other U.S. attorneys had been forced out under similarly unexplained circumstances at roughly the same time. That was enough to get Bush administration critics asking questions. But the story might well have languished there, in the netherworld of Bush White House quasi-scandals, had it not been for questions asked of Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty at a Senate hearing early last month.

The eight fired U.S. attorneys seemed inclined to go quietly until McNulty told the Senate that they’d been let go for “performance-related” problems. A review of the attorneys’ performance evaluations quickly cast doubt on that explanation. And it was also enough to get the fired attorneys talking.

5 comments:

Gonzo said...

Wonder what the deal is here?

Garrett said...

Well, two of them were told explicitly that they were being asked to step down so somebody else could get "U.S. Attorney" on their resume.

I'm sure more interesting facts will emerge as the investigation progresses.

Gonzo said...

This does indeed merit close examination and investigation.

SeattleSusieQ said...

Here's some commentary by 2 professors who have catalogued this kind of thing (using Fox, maybe?? (g)

Their question is - what about all the U.S. attorney's who haven't lost their jobs.

http://www.epluribusmedia.org/columns/2007/20070212_political_profiling.html

Gonzo said...

I went to that site and it seems to me that each of the 7 released had some flaw in their approach to their job. Fatal flaw? Dunno...hard to glean that from a highly partisan site such as this one. As to the AGs who didn't get fired all I can say is STFU until you can point to something.