Analysis: Bush Can't Hide From Woes

U.S. President George W. Bush, center, greets guests as he arrives for a social dinner with Mexican President Felipe Calderon at Hacienda Xcanatun, Tuesday, March 13, 2007 in Merida, Mexico. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) (Pablo Martinez Monsivais - AP)

Fred Greenstein, professor emeritus of politics at Princeton University, offered one explanation for why Bush was finding trouble at every turn: "When you're down, you're a target. It's the blood-in-the-water phenomena. The story becomes the shortcomings of the administration. I know that's happened in other presidencies. Things that might have been passed off suddenly become very important."

But the larger, overarching context is the war in Iraq and public discontent with it, Greenstein said. So missteps in other areas "look like the same story: This is a guy who's not up to the job. The administration has managed to be globally unpopular. Iraq is the great connecting tissue that does pull all the dots together."

Nobody disputes the president's ability to fire or not renew the jobs of federal prosecutors. They're political appointees who serve at his pleasure.

When the party in the White House changes hands, it is common for the new president to fire all the sitting U.S. attorneys, as Ronald Reagan did in 1981 and Bill Clinton in 1993. By contrast, Bush allowed some to stay on the job for several months when he took office in 2001, although all were replaced eventually.

In the current controversy, Democrats have accused the Justice Department of playing politics with the prosecutors' jobs. They suggested some of the prosecutors were fired for either investigating Republicans or failing to pursue cases against Democrats. Several of the ousted prosecutors have told Congress they were improperly pressured by Republicans on pending cases.

Even some Republicans suggest the rifle-shot dismissals of the eight prosecutors was handled clumsily, raising issues of political interference with the administration of justice rather than the president's undisputed ability to make political appointments. It displayed "idiocy on the part of the administration," suggested Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And Republican Rep. James Sensenbrenner, a House Judiciary Committee member, warned that the Justice Department was "going to have to come up with some answers" in explaining the firings. "If they don't, they're going to lose everyone's confidence."

For Bush it all adds up to trouble ahead, trouble behind.

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EDITOR'S NOTE _ Tom Raum has covered Washington for The Associated Press since 1973, including five presidencies.