The U.S. attorney scandal matters

[maddezmom]

The U.S. attorney scandal matters
By Dan Radmacher


The current U.S. attorney scandal is one of those multi-layered wonkfests that most people have only scratched the surface of, if that.

On that surface, the scandal is about the firing of nine U.S. attorneys who hadn't proven themselves as "loyal Bushies."

Conservative partisans tried to twist that narrative into something benign, noting that no political scandal ensued when President Clinton fired all 93 U.S. attorneys after he took office. Well, no. That's actually pretty standard procedure. President Bush did the same when he took office.

This scandal is about firing Republican prosecutors who apparently weren't political enough, who didn't take marching orders from Karl Rove and Republican senators. It's about a little-noticed provision slipped into the reauthorization of the Patriot Act that allowed the U.S. attorney general to appoint new U.S. attorneys indefinitely without Senate confirmation. It's about White House interference with the traditional independence of the Justice Department from crass politics.

And it's about attempts to cover up that interference, which may at this point include the illegal use of a parallel Republican National Committee computer system to conduct White House business while avoiding archive requirements for official e-mail.

Peel back another layer, though, and the scandal becomes about a Republican attempt to use bogus vote fraud allegations in key swing states to affect the outcome of the 2006 and 2008 elections.

more;http://www.roanoke.com/editorials/radmacher/wb/wb/xp-120127

[dennis4868]

1. It's going to take at least....

50 years to undo all the damage that Bush and his thugs have done to this great country. I sort of feel bad for the next 4-5 presidents because if they are truly doing their jobs they will have to spend 95% of their time cleaning up Bush's mess....not fair at all!

[annabanana]

2. And that's only if the next 4 or 5 Presidents are

honest. (What're the odds, given the machinery of the vote today?)

[dennis4868]

3. Agree