March 13, 2007

The inane ‘Clinton did it too’ defense

As the prosecutor purge scandal continues to become more serious and more damaging for the Bush gang, the right has struggled to come up with a coherent defense. They seem to have embraced one, but it’s surprisingly weak.

Karl Rove got the ball rolling last week.

“Look, by law and by Constitution [sic], these attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and traditionally are given a four year term. And Clinton, when he came in, replaced all 93 U.S. attorneys. When we came in, we ultimately replace most all 93 U.S. attorneys — there are some still left from the Clinton era in place. We have appointed a total of I think128 U.S. attorneys — that is to say the original 93, plus replaced some, some have served 4 years, some served less, most have served more. Clinton did 123. I mean, this is normal and ordinary.”

A few days later, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) repeated it.

Graham played down the administration’s purge of U.S. Attorneys, calling it perfectly within President Bush’s authority and merely “poorly handled” and “unseemly.” He also repeated Karl Rove’s lie that President Clinton also purged attorneys. “Clinton let them all go when he took over,” Graham said.

A day later, the Wall Street Journal editorial page was using it.

[T]hese are the same Democrats who didn’t raise a whimper when Bill Clinton’s Attorney General Janet Reno sacked all 93 U.S. attorneys in one unclean sweep upon taking office. Previous Presidents had kept the attorneys in place until they could replace each one. That was a more serious abuse than anything known about these Bush dismissals.

Today, a number of far-right blogs have picked up on the same talking point, and even the traditional media is picking up on it, with NBC’s Kevin Corke repeating the meme this morning.

I had hoped this nonsense, debunked last week, would have disappeared by now, but it seems to be the only talking point White House allies can come up with.

The argument is premised on a mistaken understanding of how the process works. When a president takes office, he or she nominates federal prosecutors at the beginning of the first term. Under normal circumstances, these U.S. Attorneys serve until the next president is sworn in.

In 1993, Clinton replaced H.W. Bush’s prosecutors. In 2001, Bush replaced Clinton’s prosecutors. None of this is remotely unusual. Indeed, it’s how the process is designed.

The difference with the current scandal is overwhelming. Bush replaced eight specific prosecutors, apparently for purely political reasons. This is entirely unprecedented. For conservatives to argue, as many are now, that Clinton’s routine replacements for H.W. Bush’s USAs is any way similar is the height of intellectual dishonesty. They know better, but hope their audience is too uninformed to know the difference.

Clinton’s former chief of staff John Podesta told ThinkProgress last week that the entire argument is “pure fiction.”

Mr. Rove’s claims today that the Bush administration’s purge of qualified and capable U.S. attorneys is “normal and ordinary” is pure fiction. Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in — as we did in 1993 and the Bush administration did in 2001 — is not unusual. But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution. These U.S. attorneys received positive performance reviews from the Justice Department and were then given no reason for their firings.

We’re used to this White House distorting the facts to blame the Clinton administration for its failures. Apparently, it’s also willing to distort the facts and invoke the Clinton administration to try to justify its bad behavior.

Josh Marshall added this morning:

First, we now know — or at least the White House is trying to tell us — that they considered firing all the US Attorneys at the beginning of Bush’s second term. That would have been unprecedented but not an abuse of power in itself. The issue here is why these US Attorneys were fired and the fact that the White House intended to replace them with US Attorneys not confirmed by the senate. We now have abundant evidence that they were fired for not sufficiently politicizing their offices, for not indicting enough Democrats on bogus charges or for too aggressively going after Republicans. (Remember, Carol Lam is still the big story here.) We also now know that the top leadership of the Justice Department lied both to the public and to Congress about why the firing took place. As an added bonus we know the whole plan was hatched at the White House with the direct involvement of the president.

And Clinton? Every new president appoints new US Attorneys. That always happens. Always…. The whole thing is silly. But a lot of reporters on the news are already falling for it. The issue here is why these US Attorneys were fired — a) because they weren’t pursuing a GOP agenda of indicting Democrats, that’s a miscarriage of justice, and b) because they lied to Congress about why it happened.

Note to Bush allies: if the “Clinton did it” defense is the best you can do, this scandal must be truly horrifying.

Update: In case there was still any lingering doubt among conservatives on this point, in White House documents released today, there’s an email to Harriet Miers from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s chief of staff Kyle Sampson (who resigned yesterday), in which Sampsons admits that the Clinton administration never purged its U.S. attorneys in the middle of their terms, explicitly stating, “In recent memory, during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, Presidents Reagan and Clinton did not seek to remove and replace U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely under the holdover provision.”

Second Update: No matter how often the “Clinton did it” defense is debunked, the right just can’t seem to help itself.

Third Update: Now the right has altered the argument, shifting the emphasis to just one prosecutor Clinton fired. Conservatives got this one wrong, too.

 
Discussion

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52 Comments
1.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:22 pm, bubba said:

Glad you picked this up–as noted in the comments to the prior post, we definitely cannot fall into the trap of repeating lies of the right wing.

2.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:27 pm, Dale said:

Plus there’s the mystery of who put the provision in the Patriot Act that allowed them to appoint attorneys without congressional approval.

3.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:32 pm, kevo said:

Yes, the Bush administration is dirty. It is dirty now, it has been dirty up to now, and it will be seen in the future as dirty. The members of this WH have proven over and over their junta-like mentality. Bring the troops home, impeach the president and vice-president, and return to the rule of law would seem like prudent actions, whether in that order or not, at this juncture of American history. -Kevo

4.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:32 pm, petorado said:

The defense that Clinton did it when he took over office is a sham. I’m surprised Karl didn’t mention that Clinton even turned over the whole cabinet from the Bush I administration and replaced them all with his own people. The nerve! Rove obviously takes the people of this nations as a bunch of idiots by spouting crap like that.

5.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:34 pm, GRACIOUS said:

I think this scandal is horrifying, and we probably don’t know all of it as usual. We now must wait for the other shoe to drop.

This much I can speak to from personal knowledge. When proposition 215 passed in California (medical marijuana) in 1996, the Clinton administration’s DOJ sued, but did not pursue patients through the criminal courts. All the Clinton era suits were civil. Once Ashcroft became the AG, the DOJ used the criminal courts to prosecute patients. The situation has gotten worse under Gonzales. Just in the last few months a “patient activist” (probably a Carpetbagger reader) was sentenced to thirteen years for dispensing medical marijuana to sick people.

The criminal courts should not be used to foreward a political agenda, especially when the victims are the sickest and usually the poorest among us.

6.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:39 pm, LG said:

It’s worth repeating that these are _Bush_ appointees. This is a GOP on GOP crime.

7.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:43 pm, Common Knowledge said:

Drudge is highlighting a
(dishonest) 1993 article
about this right now. That means the media herd won’t be far behind.

8.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:43 pm, Racerx said:

They know better, but hope their audience is too uninformed to know the difference.

The ignorance of the American people is the cornerstone of the Republican party. It is their life blood.

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of ignorance, and Americans actually LIKE being ignorant. In addition, our media is literally designed to make people stupider, which helps them sell Viagra, SUVs, and attacks on foreign countries.

If we survive this era, it will be because the Blogs counteracted the slide into totalitarianism

9.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:46 pm, KMB said:

I think TPM ferreted out some staffer in Specter’s office who slipped the appointment without confirmation loophole into the PATRIOT renewal.

10.
On March 13th, 2007 at 1:49 pm, LG said:
12.
On March 13th, 2007 at 2:04 pm, Common Knowledge said:

True, KMB, but probably at the request of the White House. One of the issues now is who at the White House was involved in slipping this change in, and was it done as part of a plan to further politicize the U.S. Attorney’s offices.

13.
On March 13th, 2007 at 2:05 pm, Marlowe said:

“Plus there’s the mystery of who put the provision in the Patriot Act that allowed them to appoint attorneys without congressional approval.”

I thought this was largely resolved. The provision was inserted by a right wing Republican aide to the Senante Judiciary Committee (whose name I forget atm). The aide was hired by Arlen Spector as another way to prove his bona fides to the wingnuts and preserve his chairmanship.

14.
On March 13th, 2007 at 2:11 pm, bubba said:

Spector’s aide’s name didn’t happen to be Karl Rove, Jr., did it? I bet, though, that that aide sure would have stood to gain from this.

15.
On March 13th, 2007 at 2:24 pm, KMB said:

CK – no “probably” about it, I would say.

Plus, we get Specter’s (patent pending) cycle of bluster followed by deafening silence/backpedaling.

16.
On March 13th, 2007 at 2:34 pm, K Ashford said:

Sampson admits that the Clinton administration never purged its U.S. attorneys in the middle of their terms, explicitly stating, “In recent memory, during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, Presidents Reagan and Clinton did not seek to remove and replace U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely under the holdover provision.”

You might note that the words “did not” were underlined in the original text of Sampson’s email. He was quite emphatic about making the distinction.

17.
On March 13th, 2007 at 2:39 pm, Mark D (aka ”Unholy Moses”) said:

How the hell is it that my dumb ass figured out the difference when this whole thing first started — and did so with the help of a few blogs and the Google — yet our nation’s political leaders and media can’t?

18.
On March 13th, 2007 at 2:58 pm, ScottW said:

“Unfortunately, there is no shortage of ignorance, and Americans actually LIKE being ignorant.” – Racerx

I strongly disagree. My parents live in very rural Wisconsin, they have access to 2 TV channels and 1 newspaper. They watch the news on occasion, but both parents read the paper from front to back, all 8 pages. They are not ignorant, they are mislead. I doubt they know anything about this scandal and by the time they do, it will be watered down and framed by republicans. They are moderates, but poorly informed.

Instead of calling Americans ignorant, how about we lay the blame where it belongs, the media owners who find it very convenient to keep this country uniformed. If you don’t have access to the truth, you can hardly be blamed for making bad decisions or being ignorant. In this age of American Idol and reality TV, people still find time to watch the news and read the paper.

A close friend once told me. “Scott, you have to go find the truth, it will never land on your door”. Some people just do not have access to the truth, even when they search for it, and that is really the shame of this country.

19.
On March 13th, 2007 at 3:17 pm, Grumpy said:

The “Clinton did it” defense is already getting soaked up.

I mentioned the controversy in a radio newscast this morning. Almost immediately, a listener called and insisted that I mention Clinton too, for “perspective.”

20.
On March 13th, 2007 at 3:26 pm, bubba said:

“Unfortunately, there is no shortage of ignorance, and Americans actually LIKE being ignorant.” – Racerx

Unlike ScottW, I agree wholeheartedly with this analysis and conclusion. Scott, your parents are the exception, not the norm. True, people should go look for the truth, but on top of being ignorant, most Americans are also pretty lazy in this regard–if it is not handed to them, and something that does not automatically translate into some $$ in their own particular pockets, they just are not going to make the effort. Period. Don’t know if it was always like this, but if it wasn’t, the decline no doubt escalated when our cities and towns all became one newspaper towns.

21.
On March 13th, 2007 at 4:32 pm, -jay- said:

You’ve got to hand it to Fat Karl. He’s always pretty good at finding the lowest common denominator and exploiting it. “Their audience is too uninformed to know the difference” is one such example. #8Racerx, #18 ScottW, and #20 bubba are all correct, the public is both ignorant AND misled. Rove knows this and fashions a false talking point that becomes a “fact” faster than a Repug can take a bribe.

22.
On March 13th, 2007 at 4:53 pm, Jenny said:

Kudos to CNN. I heard on MSNBC, from some republican stragetist, the same crap Rove and others are spewing. Then I tuned into CNN and they said what is really going on and why it was unusual.

23.
On March 13th, 2007 at 4:58 pm, Randy said:

David Brooks used the “Clinton did it” excuse on the March 9, 2007 All things Considered, Week in Analysis” and on PBS Newshour DAVID BROOKS:….And Clinton fired all the Republicans when he came in.

24.
On March 13th, 2007 at 5:23 pm, jyt said:

This is not something I picked up from the media, but from a discussion with a few Bush supporters. In case this should make it into the mainstream, I thought I’d post it here for prophylactic rebuttal & debunking.

According to their take on Clinton & the 93 US Attorneys, it was unusual and unprecedented for a president to accept all the resignations en masse and before successors were named.By replacing every single US Attorney in this precipitous fashion, Clinton supposedly left the districts in the hands of acting or interim appointments for quite some time and many ongoing investigations in limbo.

And of course there’s the usual Clinton cover-up” corollary. They allege that the replacement of all 93 US A’s was a diversion to cover the replacement of the Arkansas incumbent who was investigating some of the Clintons’ financial dealings, dealings which would later be known by the catch-all Whitewater name. That replacement was Clinton’s former student & protege, Paula Casey
According to these Bush apologists, she had strong political ties to some of the people being investigated in Arkansas and no prosecutorial experience. Federal officials who sent information to Casey for possible criminal action against the Clintons & Gov. Jim Guy Tucker alleged that Casey declined those criminal referrals, without first forwarding them to the Justice Department for review , as was the normal practice. Only by going over her head were they able to have their referrals reviewed.

I have no idea if these are a set of official talking points or something they came up with on their own.In any case, it’s interesting the effort that gets put into the “Clinton Did It” narrative in order to keep it alive. Never is there a complete admission of error; it’s always a, “Yes, but….”

25.
On March 13th, 2007 at 5:27 pm, Really said:

How is this a scandal? Don’t they serve at the pleasure of the president? Can’t he fire them anytime he wants? There were all republican, so why should any Dem care? Seems like a whole lot of nothing to me.

26.
On March 13th, 2007 at 5:58 pm, Beonda Pale said:

How is this a scandal? Don’t they serve at the pleasure of the president? Can’t he fire them anytime he wants? There were all republican, so why should any Dem care? Seems like a whole lot of nothing to me.

Comment by Really — 3/13/2007 @ 5:27 pm

Yep, and the “Saturday Night Massacre” was a whole lot of nothing too right?

27.
On March 13th, 2007 at 6:37 pm, david woods said:

Wouldn’t all this be clearer to the Average Joe Lunchbox (me) if one could just say who appointed the USAs who have been sacked? Were the eight (or is it nine) who were fired appointed by Bush or Clinton?

28.
On March 13th, 2007 at 6:37 pm, Wad Spicer said:

The Bush/Cheney administration will be remembered as the ” “Go-fuck-yourself” Administration”. Their behavior has turned the office of the President into a dirty tricks clearing house with Rove as their cheif dispatcher. The USAttorney brouhaha may well bring down Gonzales, but the boys at the top will remain, coated with the political teflon they fought to inherit from Granpa “If you don’t remember it, forget it” Reagan.

29.
On March 13th, 2007 at 7:43 pm, gda said:

One more point…they use the “Clinton fired all 93 when he took over, with a snarl implying that Clinton was a ruthless partisan. But, they ignore that their blessed St. Ronald did the same thing.

30.
On March 13th, 2007 at 8:05 pm, Common Knowledge said:

DW – All of the fired prosecutors were appointed by Bush. As both Reagan and Clinton did, Bush replace all (almost all?) of the U.S. Attorneys soon after he took office in 2001.

All 93 USAs are committed, loyal, long-time Republicans. It appears the fired ones might be conservatives that still put integrity and principal above blind party loyalty.

31.
On March 13th, 2007 at 8:13 pm, Common Knowledge said:

BTW – Am I the only one that’s troubled by the notion that USAs are all party loyalists (either Democratic or Republican), and are replaced en mass when a new party takes the White House? These are supposed to be front-line law enforcement officers, not partisan hacks. Shouldn’t we be pushing for a reform that changes the appointments to a system of staggered fixed terms, so that at least some of them are not blindly loyal to the current administration? I don’t know if that’s a good idea, but there’s got to be a better system than we have now.

32.
On March 13th, 2007 at 9:55 pm, M. Peach said:

The ‘Gonzales 8’ firings smack of the “Saturday Night Massacre” (October 20, 1973), where Nixon axed special prosecutor Archibald Cox. A GOP on GOP crime, and where are the ‘real’ Republicans?

33.
On March 14th, 2007 at 11:04 am, Darkie said:

How is this a scandal? Don’t they serve at the pleasure of the president? Can’t he fire them anytime he wants? There were all republican, so why should any Dem care? Seems like a whole lot of nothing to me.

Absolutely. The administration/DOJ can rightfully fire these guys because they are blond and it’s a Tuesday. What makes this different is that they are end-running around the usual procedures, some merely polite, like asking the home state senators for recommendations for replacements, and some legal, like getting senate approval for the replacements. Without the abuse of that one line in the patriot act that was supposed to be used only in an emergency, this story wouldn’t have such long legs. If they hadn’t lied about why the US As were fired in the first place, no one would have taken any notice of any of this. Lying to congress, like lying to a grand jury IS a crime. Firing multiple US As for any old reason is not a crime, if perhaps unprecedented.

The Bush Administration’s penchant for sneaking around is what got them into trouble here, which is hysterical, I think. They ASSUMED they were breaking the law and HAD to lie, if they hadn’t, we’d all still be talking about Libby right now.

34.
On March 14th, 2007 at 11:27 am, Tom Bell said:

Overheard on Imus this morning…

IMUS: This Alberto Gonzales thing… what’s going on there. I haven’t been paying attention because whenever I hear something like this I just assume it’s all true and everyone’s lying.

WALLACE: Well I think that’s usually the way to go, in any administration, and, and here’s a fact you probably don’t know because it hasn‘t been reported very much,. Did you know that Bill Clinton, when he came into office, in1993, fired every US Attorney except one?

IMUS: No, I did not know that.

WALLACE: Yeah, it’s kind of interesting. I mean, and there were no congressional hearings. There wasn’t this kind of storm of protest. And that had not happened before. You’d say, okay, well new presidents come in… But he fired all of them except one, Michael Chertoff, and he would have fired him as well, except that Bill Bradley, Chertoff was in New Jersey, Bill Bradley spoke up for him and saved him, but…

IMUS: Why’d he fire all of them?

WALLACE: It, it, it, it looks lousy, because the whole point is supposed to be, they’re political appointees, but once they become US Attorneys they’re supposed to be non-political and there is, certainly in this email traffic and indication that political loyalty was one of the key requirements the White House wanted for these guys. (I THINK HE’S TALKING ABOUT THE CURRENT SITUATION HERE)

IMUS: No, but why did Bill Clinton fire them?

WALLACE: He, he, he, I don’t know the reason but I think it was, I comin’ in, and they serve at the pleasure of the president. Let’s get rid of all of them. Let’s get our guys in there. Of course there’d been twelve years of republicans, and they were all republicans and he wanted democratic US Attorneys.

IMUS: OK, so now what is the suspicion that these eight were fired? Why, why were they fired?

WALLACE: Well, they don’t all follow the same track, but certainly in at least a couple of cases seem to have been political problems. I mean the best, the most egregious case seems to have bee n the one in New Mexico, where the guy was slow on prosecuting the Democrats and got phone calls from two Republican members of Congress, Pete Domenici and Heather Wilson, and that seems clearly, that seems to have been a real paper trail there.

transcribed by me.

35.
On March 14th, 2007 at 6:25 pm, rolandog said:

Racerx:

Unfortunately, there is no shortage of ignorance […]

This video, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuNgBkloFE> , agrees with you.

36.
On March 14th, 2007 at 9:03 pm, Jason said:

You’d have to be an idiot to buy this explanation that what Clinton did is somehow different. Clinton replaced a prosecutor involved in his OWN whitewater case with a friend of his.

The fact is that no one cares about this. It’s a non-story. It will never be an issue, no matter how much wishful thinking is poured into it by deranged Bush haters.

37.
On March 15th, 2007 at 2:50 am, Matt said:

A) Are we to believe that Clinton did not fire his attorneys for political reasons? According to the very first sentence of the New York Times report from 1993, “Attorney General Janet Reno today demanded the prompt resignation of all United States attorneys, leading the federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia [Jay Stephens] to suggest that the order could be tied to his long running investigation of Don Rostenkowski, a crucial ally of President Clinton.” Ms. Reno said she wanted the resignations “so that the U.S. Attorneys presently in position will know where they stand and we can begin to build a team.” In other words, we want people who agree with us and are on our political side.

B) President Bush did not fire his attorneys when he came into office. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and Bush 41 and 43 ALL simply accepted resignations, per tradition, or let their terms expire if they didn’t resign (most did, by the way — in the case of Bush 43, 91 of 93 resigned). Clinton (via Reno) actually demanded each of their resignations and this was unprecedented. I defy any of you to show otherwise.

C) The important question here is — were these firings justified? I don’t doubt that they were political, but as I said, I don’t think that’s the question. Why did he really fire them and did they deserve it? Let’s check one of them out, shall we? From today’s WSJ Editorial:

“Take sacked U.S. Attorney John McKay from Washington state. In 2004, the Governor’s race was decided in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129 votes on a third recount. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other media outlets reported, some of the “voters” were deceased, others were registered in storage-rental facilities, and still others were convicted felons. More than 100 ballots were “discovered” in a Seattle warehouse. None of this constitutes proof that the election was stolen. But it should have been enough to prompt Mr. McKay, a Democrat, to investigate, something he declined to do, apparently on grounds that he had better things to do.”

So, basically, you’ve got Democrats refusing to prosecute Democrats… for political reasons. The editorial goes on to check out more of the fired attorneys. Those of you honestly wishing to have an informed opinion owe it to yourselves to investigate it.

In the meantime, consider what you’ll think if Obama (or H Clinton or Kerry or Gore or whichever Democrat you think is going to take office) decides to fire a Republican U.S. Attorney for refusal to investigate voter fraud in a race for governor that was narrowly won by a Republican amid suspicions of fraud. I think this might change your view a bit.

38.
On March 15th, 2007 at 8:23 am, Brad Cornell said:

Unfortunatly the WSJ didn’t do much homework before writing their editorial.

During a House hearing on the U.S. attorney firings, McKay testified:

McKAY: It is very true that the controversy surrounding the 2004 governor’s election was one that had a lot of public debate. I was aware that I was receiving criticism for not proceeding with a criminal investigation. And, frankly, it didn’t matter to me what people thought. Like my colleagues, we work on evidence, and there was no evidence of voter fraud or election fraud. And, therefore, we took nothing to the grand jury.

Further, according to a March 13 Seattle Times article, “McKay insists that top prosecutors in his office and agents from the FBI conducted a ‘very active’ review of allegations of fraud during the election but filed no charge and did not convene a federal grand jury because ‘we never found any evidence of criminal conduct.’ ” The Times also reported: “McKay also wanted to make it clear that he pressed ahead with a preliminary investigation, despite the hesitation of Craig Donsanto, the longtime chief of the Election Crimes branch of the Department of Justice, who ultimately concurred with McKay that no federal crimes had been committed in the election.”

The Wall Street Journal’s assertion that McKay — who was appointed to the position by President Bush — is a Democrat apparently stems from a letter sent to Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA) by Tom McCabe, executive vice president of the Building Industry Association of Washington, in which McCabe called McKay a Democrat. But Chris Vance, the former state Republican Party chairman, was quoted in a March 14 Seattle Times article referring to McKay as a Republican, stating that “he felt compelled to approach McKay [on the election matter] as a fellow Republican.” An October 31, 2001, Seattle Times article about McKay’s swearing-in as U.S. attorney described McKay as a “moderate Republican,” and a May 20, 1999, Associated Press article identified McKay as a Republican and quoted him referring to the GOP as “our party.” The Department of Justice website documented that McKay previously worked for Republican Rep. Joe Pritchard (WA) and as a White House fellow under George H.W. Bush in 1989-90. Also, according to Seattle Post-Intelligencer columnist Joel Connelly, McKay’s family has been “involv[ed] in four Bush Presidential campaigns.”

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703140007

39.
On March 15th, 2007 at 3:21 pm, Joyce said:

C’mon, we are all familiar with the way this Administration operates: Rely on the intellectual laziness of the average American citizen, and then tell the same lie over and over so many times that the average person will believe it.

40.
On March 15th, 2007 at 11:25 pm, Pat said:

37:

A) Don Rostenkowski – First off, his name is Dan not Don. Secondly he was indicted and pleaded guilty to mail fraud. He served 15 months of a 17 month sentence.

B) I don’t know about this one, you see I was too young to know about or understand what was happening. Regardless of what Clinton did, the excuse that “Clinton did it” or “Clinton was worse” is disingenuous. Just because Clinton did something that looked bad (and maybe was wrong) doesn’t mean that the current president should get a pass now. I can’t change the past, but I can sure as hell try to make things better.

C) #38 already started to cover this one, but here is this:
President George W. Bush nominated Mr. McKay to serve as the United States Attorney on September 19, 2001, and the United States Senate confirmed his nomination on October 24, 2001. Mr. McKay began his tenure as United States Attorney for Western Washington on October 30, 2001. http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/waw/about/mckay_bio.html

41.
On March 16th, 2007 at 10:02 am, Vincent said:

Bring the troops home? Sure. Why don’t we also say, “Bring the troops home and thereby create a vacuum of power and sit back to watch Iraqis kill each other in even more horrific ways then we ever imagined.” Why don’t we also add, “Bring the troops home and in effect pretty much totally make us look like a nation of panzies who cannot stick to any fight for fear of losing a soldier.” Why don’t we also say, “Let’s be unrealistic and imagine that when we leave Iraq peace will reign and Islamic extremists will never harm another person ever again. We will break pita with the terrorists and they will love us and our children will never have to fear of car bombs, terror plots or instability in the region of the world that technically fuels this planet.”
You liberals have no answers………………..no solutions and no real ideas when it comes to the problems this world faces. Immigration? Liberals say let them all in!! Gay marriage? Sure! Whatever you want regardless of how it affects our society in the future! Abortion? Sure! On demand for minors and no need for parental involvement. Its even ok to kill a baby at six months!!! (never mind that my son was born almost three months premature and is living and breathing just fine…thanks!) Guns? Ban them all and just leave the criminals who ALWAYS get them illegally anyways to run the streets!!!
Aside from trying to please everyone and taking no stance whatsoever…………..do you really think the America you have envisioned for the future is the place you want your kids to grow?……………Liberals are destroying my country………………

42.
On March 16th, 2007 at 11:35 am, ET said:

KB – I know you see what you want to see and believe what you want to believe and little will change your mind but see this post

http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10193.html

and this Congressional Research Service Report

http://www.buzzflash.com/archives/07/US_attrny_rprt.pdf

43.
On March 20th, 2007 at 7:35 pm, GW said:

Could this be true? Clinton fired 93 to hide ONE!

Jewish World Review Sept. 15, 1998 / 24 Elul, 5758

Thomas Sowell

…The Clintons could not interfere with the feds, however — at least not until they were in the White House. By then, Madison Guaranty had been closed down and federal investigators were on the trail of the frauds. By FIRING all U.S. Attorneys shortly after becoming president — something no other president had ever done before — Bill Clinton got rid of the U.S. Attorney in Arkansas who was investigating the Whitewater-Madison Guaranty scandals and replaced him with Paula Casey, a Clinton protege and one of his political campaign workers.

The president’s Arkansas appointee had no experience as a prosecutor, but she had political ties to the people being investigated — including the Clintons and Arkansas governor Jim Guy Tucker.

Other federal authorities who sent information to Ms. Casey for criminal investigations of Tucker and the Clintons got nowhere. She officially declined the criminal referrals. She even kept the information from reaching Justice Department headquarters in Washington, until others went over her head to tell the top brass at Justice in D.C.

44.
On March 20th, 2007 at 11:50 pm, GW said:

A fact is not a talking point — unless you disagree with it of course.

45.
On March 21st, 2007 at 11:28 am, joyce said:

It seems that every liberal I know is either on the public payroll or has an immediate family member who is. Do a survey and let me know the results.

46.
On March 29th, 2007 at 1:47 pm, Peter Zabriskie said:

Congress is authorized by the appointments clause to vest the appointment of “inferior Officers,” at its discretion, “in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.” Principal questions arising under this portion of the clause are “Who are ‘inferior officers,”’ and “what are the “Departments” whose heads may be given appointing power?466 “[A]ny appointee[p.514]exercising significant authority pursuant to the laws of the United States is an ‘Officer of the United States,’ and must, therefore, be appointed in the manner prescribed by Sec. 2, cl. 2, of [Article II].”467 “The Constitution for purposes of appointment very clearly divides all its officers into two classes. The primary class requires a nomination by the President and confirmation by the Senate. But foreseeing that when offices became numerous, and sudden removals necessary, this mode might be inconvenient, it was provided that, in regard to officers inferior to those specially mentioned, Congress might by law vest their appointment in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments. That all persons who can be said to hold an office under the government about to be established under the Constitution were intended to be included within one or the other of these modes of appointment there can be but little doubt.”468

http://www.law.cornell.edu/anncon/html/art2frag25_user.html

WWJD 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10….I love being called ignorant and uniformed by
folks whose liberal bias is supposed to be embracing differences. There are only a few months left of the Bush administration, instead of ranting could you please build some houses in Louisiana, or send so food and medicine to Sudan, or reach out the muslim community in your neighborhood and create some ecomonic ties, or stop bringing frivolous law suits and burdening the courts, or start movement to lift American Spirit Month, or give away some more of your cash to a poor family who needs here in America, or build a school for children not your own, or dig a water well for a family that has no water, here in America or abroad, or write a book on detailing how can we FIX our differences. Try talking to a republican instead of just throwing stones, quit being haters, try being players. Peace.

47.
On March 29th, 2007 at 3:08 pm, Stephen said:

My statement is one of honest curiosity, so please refrain from flaming, and try to answer as best you can…

Does anyone really believe that the practice of appointing new Attorneys General at the beginning of a new president’s term isn’t based in partisanship?

I’m just questioning, what I see as, the VERY thin line between replacing “eight specific prosecutors, apparently for purely political reasons” and replacing 93 prosecutors, for obviously political reasons (as most recent presidents have done)

Now, I’m certainly not justifying lying under oath… ANYONE should be nailed to the wall for that, but the underlying debate over the basic practice of firing/appointing seems to be a gray one… no?

48.
On March 31st, 2007 at 8:19 am, ShotInTheFace said:

To #47:

“Does anyone really believe that the practice of appointing new Attorneys General at the beginning of a new president’s term isn’t based in partisanship?”

No.

“VERY thin line” between replacing eight specific prosecutors and replacing 93 prosecutors”

The question to ask is “when” and “how many.” If the president fired ALL of them when he was FIRST elected, congress don’t seems to have problem with it. But once you become selective, and then lied to the congress as why you did it, then it become a totally different matter. The line in this case is actually very thick, or, more like the Grand Canyons.

49.
On April 18th, 2007 at 3:11 pm, ed said:

It’s ok to fire US attorneys for a good reason
or for no reason
But it aint ok to fire them for a bad reason.
Just one more bad decision in a whole line of very bad decisions by a very incompetent money grubbing power monger.

50.
On May 8th, 2007 at 4:38 pm, Moose said:

Funny.

An article on how Administration and other right-wing organizations spout irrelevant/illogical/incorrect talking points, rebutted in comments by apparent loyalists ad nauseum repeating the same said talking point.

rolandog is right. And has the video to prove it.

51.
On July 26th, 2007 at 7:08 am, Mark said:

“The question to ask is “when” and “how many.” If the president fired ALL of them when he was FIRST elected, congress don’t seems to have problem with it. But once you become selective, and then lied to the congress as why you did it, then it become a totally different matter. The line in this case is actually very thick, or, more like the Grand Canyon”

That’s brilliant logic. And your English is exquisite.