Josh Marshall on why Purgegate is important

[Snellius]

There's an excellent little piece on why the firing of the US District Attorneys is such a big deal:

Given the amount of attention we've given to the US Attorney Purge, there's been no end of right-wing nutjobs who've written in asking just what the big deal is. In most cases, these are just attacks dressed up as questions. And I do my best -- not always successfully -- to ignore them. But interspersed in that mess of emails are a few who seem to be asking, genuinely, what the big deal is. Perhaps they're critics of the president or conservatives who genuinely don't see it. So here's how I'd answer that question.

For all the intensity and hostility awash in our politics, there are some lines we just assume aren't going to be crossed, lines that are so basic that the civil compact itself can't easily survive if they're not respected.

...

So what you have here is this basic line being breached. But not only that. What is equally threatening is the systematic nature of the offense. This isn't one US Attorney out to get Democrats or one rogue senator trying to monkey around with the justice system. The same thing happened in Washington state and New Mexico -- with the same sort of complaints being received and acted upon at the White House and the Department of Justice. Indeed, there appears to have been a whole process in place to root out prosecutors who wouldn't prostitute their offices for partisan goals.

We all understand that politics and the law aren't two hermetically sealed domains. And we understand that partisanship may come into play at the margins. But we expect it to be the exception to the rule and a rare one. But here it appears to have become the rule rather than the exception, a systematic effort at the highest levels to hijack the Justice Department and use it to advance the interest of one party over the other by use of selective prosecution.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

[loudsue]

1. K & R !!! The MSM is falling SO far behind on explaining this crime!!!

You can bet the farm on it, that if this was a Democratic Party problem, the talking points would be made TOTALLY CLEAR: "These attorneys were fired because they stopped huge investigations against the party in power, and allowed them to get away with huge crimes against the taxpayers...mafia-style crimes. And they were, unjustiifiably encouraged to go after the party who was in the minority for anything they could possibly dig up."

But that's NOT what we're hearing from the media, who have benefitted GREATLY from republican criminality: the consolidation of huge media conglomerates, so that the REAL news never reaches the eyes and ears of the American people.

:kick::kick::kick:

[Eurobabe]

8. Give 'emm a break, so many scandals so little time

LOL.

[EC]

2. Stated more simply...

Some refused to make cases and throw innocent people in jail...How many people did end up in jail with the other judges that did play ball? Or ended up defending themselves in expensive court proceedings with charges being brought with no evidence? If the courts are crooked they could conceivably throw every Democrat in prison and the uproar wouldn't even matter - because they'd make it appear legal...Or as in Ohio, declare all the election bullshit Blackwell pulled for voter disenfranchisement as legal.

[cascadiance]

3. I remember working one summer and a little longer as a store detective...

... Yes, I admit it, at one time I was watching folks shoplifting, etc.

But what was something that was drilled into us is that we couldn't afford to be "selective" in who we went after in those days either. There were laws against selectively going after one group of people based on factors outside of what their illegal activity was. And still then, I noticed some of the detectives working with me (even the good ones) watching blacks more than others, or watching those "arab women with big purses" more than others. I moved on back to college after taking a semester off while doing this profession for a brief time, and am glad I did so.

Heck, I just looked for behaviors. Like a guy putting pizza boxes next to record albums vertically in his shopping cart, or a couple with an expensive Atari video game system (expensive at the time) and getting a big box like a crib box right next to it too.

If store detectives are and have been potentially liable for using things like race or other personal attributes to go after people as "malicious prosecution" then so should folks at the upper end of the spectrum like Gonzo! This jerk needs to go!

[robinlynne]

4. Someone put it another way here on DU last week: The firing of the attorneys is

the clue that other major crimes are being committed. (when people say,as they have to me, what's the big deal? or he's allowed to fire attorneys, so what if it's a political firing?)

[Norquist Nemesis]

5. Ding Ding Ding! If the Sheriff's in your pocket, you're free to break the law

and harass your perceived enemies.

[annabanana]

6. Imagine your neighbor drove his car thorough your livingroom. . .

DELIBERATELY!

You call the cops, the Desk Sargent answers the phone "Sargent Willy, how can I help you"

"My neighbor said he didn't like the way I looked at him and he drove his car into my livingroom! I want him arrested!!




". . . well. . . Are you a Democrat or a Republican?..."


People BETTER be concerned.

[pacalo]

7. They can't appreciate the implications because they have a bad case of tunnelvision

when it comes to trusting BushCo. But if it's expressed in a partisan way, such as, "How would you feel about a Democratic president manipulating the federal justice system to their political advantage?", they would immediately get it. They should be very concerned about this because, thanks to BushCo, it's going to be decades before one of their neocons ever step foot in the WH again.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

9. Link (permalink)

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/013251.php