What a Repub said about the US atty situation....

[CoffeeCat]

I mentioned the firing of the US attorneys to a Republican friend.

She replied, "Clinton fired ALl of the US attorneys when he first came
into office. All of them. It's really no big deal".

I hadn't heard that. I asked her where she heard it and she replied,
"Fox News". I started laughing and I asked her if they also told her
that George Bush is the Messiah.

My friend rolled her eyes and we switched subjects.

I've never heard this "Clinton fired..." stuff, but she swore she
heard it.

Forgive my ignorance, but does anyone know to what my friend was
referring?

[blogslut]

1. Upon entering office

for his first term, Clinton appointed all his own USAs. This is common for a new president. What is NOT common is replacing/firing USAs during the middle of a president's second term.

[rebel with a cause]

12. I'm going to clarify something here.

You said it, but I just want to make it clear to the OP. Clinton replaced judges who's term had ended, he did not fire them. bush fired judges who were in mid-term because they did not do what he wanted which was political under handed dirty business.

[onenote]

15. and I think your clarification needs a clarification

First, United States Attorneys serve four year terms and then continue to serve until a replacement is confirmed. So, unless every US Attorney that was asked to resign after Clinton's first inauguration had been serving for the entire four years (in other words, there had been no turnover in US Attorneys during the entire Bush I presidency), the statement that Clinton was just replacing judges whose terms had ended is incorrect. Second, all (or almost all) of the US Attorneys fired by gonzo had been serving since 2001 or 2002 -- in other words, they had served their four year terms and were in the carryover stage -- just like most of the US Attorneys fired after Clinton took office.

The difference between what Clinton did and chimpy/gonzo doesn't turn on whether the fired US Attorneys had or had not "completed their terms". The difference is that it is commonplace for all US Attorneys to be asked to submit their resignations at the commencement of a new presidency. From that standpoint, what Clinton did wasn't unusual. What chimpy/gonzo did -- asking specific United States Attorneys to step down in the middle of a presidential term, in the absence of evidence that they had serious deficiencies (ane there was no such evidence; indeed, most of those targeted had positive performance reviews) is what makes this situation unique and very troubling.


http://www.law.duke.edu/shell/cite.pl?50+Duke+L.+J.+1687

[rebel with a cause]

18. Well, I was just repeating what I had read the other day.

So, excuse me. B-)

[peacetalksforall]

16. It's a Presidential privilege on changing Presidents or at any time for good reason.

Remember - Clinton didn't replace Linda Trippe who was working in the WH with Bush Sr (if I remember it correctly) - big mistake because she became viciously political and nasty - became obsessed with Clinton.

The privilege extends to U.S. Atty's. Bush, Jr did not replace them at the beginning and when he did it appeared that the reasons were because they were not playing the Bush game according to Bush political rules.

[Skittles]

2. um

it is common for presidents to do that when they first come into office - firing them because of political purposes years later and lying about it is not SOP unless you are repuke whores

[Arkansas Granny]

13. And you have mentioned another important point in your post.

The fact that these attorneys were fired is not as telling as the fact that the story of their firing has been changed several times in the last few days. If it was just a routine dismissal of some attorneys who had unfavorable performance ratings as has been claimed) why was it necessary to cover up what was done, who did it and why it was done?

[ComerPerro]

3. Clinton did it, as most presidents do, at the beginning of his first term

to put in new blood.

He didn't do it in a manner that singled people out for political revenge.

[villager]

4. The normal replacing of US Attorneys when a new President comes in.

Desperate Repubbies have been trying to conflate this with the deliberate firing of a President's own appointees, in order to shut down investigations.

[Raven]

5. Yes he did and there was nothing wrong with that.

The point here is that USA's are usually replaced when a new administration comes in. The issue here is that in the middle of his administration, Bush fired 8 USA's who he appointed but who were not wreaking enough havoc on Democrats...ongoing investigations and the like...and to make matters worse, as it usually does, people in this administration are lying about it.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Apparently it's SOP to clean out the USA's from previous admins.

Clinton did it, Bush did it too. The attys in question in the current flap were all Bush appointees. It wasn't just getting rid of the Clinton holdovers; that had already been done (in many cases just by letting their 4-year terms expire). It was Gonzo firing Bush appointees, for political reasons, long after the initial "cleansing."

I think I've got that about straight, and I hope it helps.

[eleny]

7. Hi TS

They've been saying this on the talk shows all week. I learned that there are several rebuttals. One, that Clinton never did it mid term. And the other is that there's evidence that they fired them for political reasons this time. That these attorneys weren't going after Dems during the last election to muck up their chances of winning seats in Congress.

If it comes up again, I'd advise your friend to "stay tuned" for lots more to come out. And to tune into her government via C-Span instead of the administration's media branch.

:hi:

[kikiek]

8. Bush did too. These were his appointments and the difference is huge. These were firings in

retaliation for not using their offices to prosecute as Bush saw fit. When you really think about it this is not something you would think of happening in a free country. One step closer to a dictatorship! As others have said the presidents have all changed the attorneys when they came in. There have only been 3 changed in the last 50 years after that. And each of those were single ones by different presidents not even 3 at once. The rightwing is clouding the facts again to try and cover the crime. It is an impeachable offense. Interesting comments at the ACS http://www.acsblog.org/separation-of-powers-us-attorney-firings-raise-questions-of-political-motivation.html

[kestrel91316]

9. Maybe it's just me, but I would think it was really strange if an

incoming President DIDN'T replace his predecessor's handpicked USAs, especially if the predecessor was of the other political party.

That is not anything remotely like this politically-motivated Stalinistic PURGE of the inadequately christofascist from the ranks.

We want to be looking VERY closely at a comparison of what the purged USAs were doing vs what the unpurged were doing.

[otohara]

10. Fox Viewers Still Don't Know They Are The MOST Uninformed

people in this country.

Not that what they said wasn't true in this case, but...there's a REASON they pound this BS garbage without explanation. Although I've heard this same argument on MSNBC's Tucker Carlson and Hardball.

[keepCAblue]

11. Thiswas explained a few days ago....BIG difference betw Clinton and Bush

From thinkprogress.org:

Mr. Rove’s claims today that the Bush administration’s purge of qualified and capable U.S. attorneys is “normal and ordinary” is pure fiction. Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in — as we did in 1993 and the Bush administration did in 2001 — is not unusual. But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution. These U.S. attorneys received positive performance reviews from the Justice Department and were then given no reason for their firings.

We’re used to this White House distorting the facts to blame the Clinton administration for its failures. Apparently, it’s also willing to distort the facts and invoke the Clinton administration to try to justify its bad behavior.
more: http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/08/podesta-rove/

[annabanana]

14. He was firing his own damn atty's. . Republicans. They refused to use their

offices to do his dirty work.

[johnfunk]

17. Did Clinton replace US Attroneys during Monicagate? NO!!!

Put THAT in your pipe and smoke it, Roger Ailes...

[Mister Ed]

19. Exactly.

One of the fired attorneys (Carol Lam) was pursuing an investigation that would have ripped the lid off the whole rotten Republicon system of corruption. Hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were being turned into GOP campaign contributions. The money was laundered through phony, phantom corporations by awarding "defense contracts" to them.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=408673

This is about a hundred times worse than it would have been for Clinton to fire Ken Starr when the heat was on.