Purging Prosecutors

NYT: "The mea culpa came as Congressional Democrats, who are investigating whether the White House was meddling in Justice Department affairs for political reasons, demanded that President Bush and his chief political adviser, Karl Rove, explain their roles in the firings."

LAT: "The documents offer an extraordinary look at political tactics within the Bush administration, and show the White House working closely with the Justice Department to justify the firings. The administration even adopted contingency plans for how to 'quiet' anyone who complained. And it was the administration that gave the final go-ahead to fire eight prosecutors, all of them Bush appointees."

WSJ: "Even some conservatives distanced themselves from him yesterday. Recent events show Mr. Gonzales is 'an echo chamber of the White House,' says Bruce Fein, former associate deputy attorney general under President Reagan. 'When the president says, "Jump," he says, "How high?"'"

Josh Marshall, who has been bird-dogging this scandal from the start, warns of a partisan code word:

"The story emerging is that at least some of these U.S. Attorneys were fired because they weren't aggressive enough in investigating Democratic 'voter fraud' . . . It's become standard operating procedure for Republican operatives to whip up charges of 'voter fraud'. And some of them even believe it. But the claims are almost universally bogus. And the real intent in most cases is to stymie get out the vote efforts or shut down voter registration drives -- mainly, though not exclusively, in minority voting precincts."

Andrew Sullivan wants Gonzales gone:

"We now know that a political purge of U.S. attorneys was directed from the president through the attorney-general, and was enabled by the Patriot Act. The alleged reason for removing the U.S. attorneys -- which the administration took a while to come up with -- is that the U.S. attorneys were insufficiently devoted to rooting out Democratic voters voter fraud.

"It seems to me pretty obvious that they've been caught trying to rig the justice system to perpetuate Republican control of the House and Senate. It seems to me that this originates with the president and Karl Rove. And it seems more than obvious to me that Alberto Gonzales should resign. No attorney-general with this kind of cloud over him can faintly summon public confidence as a neutral enforcer of justice."

Put David Frum down as skeptical:

"I'll give the Democrats this much on the U.S. Attorney uproar:

"If it were shown that the Bush administration had attempted to use the prosecutorial powers of U.S. Attorneys for political ends, that would be a very genuine scandal.

"But precisely because this would be a scandal, there has to be some - you know - proof. Heavy breathing won't do."