White House Countermeasures

"The ranking placed Fitzgerald below 'strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty' to the administration but above 'weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.,' according to Justice documents.

"The chart was the first step in an effort to identify U.S. attorneys who should be removed. Two prosecutors who received the same ranking as Fitzgerald were later fired, documents show."

Fitzgerald was placed in the middle category: "No recommendation; have not distinguished themselves either positively or negatively."

Patriot Act

Carl Hulse and Sheryl Gay Stolberg write in the New York Times: "The Senate moved Monday to revoke authority it granted the Bush administration last year to name federal prosecutors, with Democrats accusing the administration of abusing the appointment power at the center of an escalating clash over the ouster of eight United States attorneys.

"The move to overturn an obscure provision of the USA Patriot Act that allowed the attorney general to appoint federal prosecutors for an indefinite period without Senate confirmation....

"Some senators said the provision was used to clear the way for firing prosecutors and replacing them with candidates considered more in line with the administration.

"'We can't trust this administration to use that authority in a fair and constructive manner,' said Senator Mark Pryor, Democrat of Arkansas, who helped begin an inquiry into the dismissals by objecting to the administration's choice for his state. 'They have proven it to us.'"

The Fourth Anniversary

of the War

Jim Rutenberg and David E. Sanger write in the New York Times: "Mr. Bush's commemoration of the anniversary, delivered beneath a portrait of Theodore Roosevelt as a Rough Rider, was notable for the sharp change in tone from his speeches in the heady, early days of the war -- when it still appeared possible that a quick victory in Baghdad could be followed by a relatively swift withdrawal. In those first few months, Mr. Bush argued that he was on the way to spreading democracy throughout the Middle East through the euphoria that would surely follow the unseating of Saddam Hussein."

For more, see yesterday's column.

Editorial Watch

Newsday: "It defies both reality and logic to claim the war in Iraq can be won, as President George W. Bush did yesterday, the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of that country. . . .

"This president is never going to admit what is obvious to the American people: that his gamble in Iraq is a failure and that the issue now is how to best disengage our forces without creating such a vacuum of authority that Iraq becomes a haven for terrorists or a catalyst for a regional war. Our unsettling impression is that Bush's underlying goal is to leave office without ever having to acknowledge he was wrong to launch a preventive war in Iraq. . . .