Paul Krugman: Overblown Personnel Matters

[cal04]

Nobody is surprised to learn that the Justice Department was lying when it claimed that recently fired federal prosecutors were dismissed for poor performance. Nor is anyone surprised to learn that White House political operatives were pulling the strings.

What is surprising is how fast the truth is emerging about what Alberto Gonzales, the attorney general, dismissed just five days ago as an “overblown personnel matter.”

(snip)
Another big loose end involves what U.S. attorneys who weren’t fired did to please their employers. As I pointed out last week, the numbers show that since the Bush administration came to power, federal prosecutors have investigated far more Democrats than Republicans.

But the numbers can tell only part of the story. What we really need — and it will take a lot of legwork — is a portrait of the actual behavior of prosecutors across the country. Did they launch spurious investigations of Democrats, as I suggested last week may have happened in New Jersey? Did they slow-walk investigations of Republican scandals, like the phone-jamming case in New Hampshire?

In other words, the truth about that “overblown personnel matter” has only begun to be told. The good news is that for the first time in six years, it’s possible to hope that all the facts about a Bush administration scandal will come out in Congressional hearings — or, if necessary, in the impeachment trial of Alberto Gonzales.

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http://welcome-to-pottersville.blogspot.com/2007/03/paul-krugman-overblown-personnel.html

[originalpckelly]

1. Well Watergate was just "a third rate burglary".

[Erika]

2. Gonzales and W aimed to make all judges rabid right wing

Yes, they both should be impeached. They chose to put party above the law.

[Miss Chybil]

3. A very good point that never crossed my mind.

What the unfired prosecutors did to keep their jobs could turn out to be much more interesting than what the fired ones did to lose theirs!

[POAS]

4. I wonder how this "scandal" will stack up

against the "Saturday night massacre" of the Watergate era?

Potentially this could be much bigger, but the "massacre" happened literally overnight and was much easier for the public to wrap its arms around. This has been a "vast right wing conspiracy" going on under cover of night for years now, and may continue under the radar if the press is as lax as they have been since the Clenis left office!

[BeFree]

5. Heh

They be messin' with the wrong people. They got away with fooling the sheeple but when you mess around with the head butchers you best be wearing your armor.