Re: Running Massacre?

A number of readers, as well as other bloggers, have taken issue with my post about the “purge” of U.S. attorneys by the Bush Administration. What most of the criticism seems to miss is that I am not dismissing as “no big deal” either those resignations that truly were forced or the Patriot Act provision that gives the AG the power to appoint replacements. The Carol Lam firing in the Southern District of California has a particularly bad odor to it. But…and this is a narrow disagreement….what I don’t see is a broad-based conspiracy. I see political hackery — in the Lam firing and in the placement of Tim Griffin in the Eastern District of Arkansas. The good news is, as I said, the checks and balances of divided government have returned. In other words, there’s no way the party in power on Capitol Hill will tolerate it. That’s not a partisan statement; it’s a salutary result of November’s mid-terms.