Bush/Gonzales/Snow's fishy stories about prosecutor firings; plus TPM "don't get distracted"

[ProSense]

So Much for the Unitary Executive

Marty Lederman

I finally got a chance to read the President's address the other night, and I'm sure I wasn't the only one struck by a particular odd turn-of-phrase: "I'm sorry this, frankly, has bubbled to the surface the way it has, for the U.S. attorneys involved. I really am. These are -- I put them in there in the first place; they're decent people. They serve at our pleasure."

"Our" pleasure? I can imagine all the raised eyebrows over at the Federalist Society when they heard that one. What happened to Article II, Section 1, anyway? ("The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.")

<...>

That's fairly remarkable and troubling, if it were true -- that the Attorney General fired eight U.S. Attorneys who are, by statute, removable by the President, and did so without even getting the President's approval for such a serious decision!

That's why it's almost certainly not true. It's virtually inconceivable that the President did not sign off on the removals (even if he was not intimately involved in the discussions that led up to the final choices). The President, in his briefing, undermined Snow's subsequent claim:

"These U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the President. I named them all. And the Justice Department made recommendations, which the White House accepted, that eight of the 93 would no longer serve."

more...

From Talking Points Memo:

<...>

But don't get distracted by the lying or even the cover-up.

Right-wing shills want to chalk the blundering administration response to US Attorney Purge scandal to incompetence. But just as we can infer the force of gravity from the descent of the falling apple, the panicked succession of lies and dodges out of the administration implies not incompetence but guilty knowledge of underlying bad acts.

This isn't about the AG's lies. It's not about the attempted cover-up. It's not about executive privilege and investigative process mumbojumbo.

This is about using US Attorneys to damage Democrats and protect Republicans, using the Department of Justice as a partisan cudgel in the war for national political dominance. All the secrecy and lies, the blundering and covering-up stems from this one central fact.

[CrazyOrangeCat]

1. Excellent

[enough]

2. Or, as emptywheel says on dKos "Beware the shiny object in the Gonzales news"

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/23/224141/150

[bleever]

3. Josh knows the angle on the dangle:

...the panicked succession of lies and dodges out of the administration implies not incompetence but guilty knowledge of underlying bad acts.