So Is This U.S. Attorney Purge Unprecedented Or Not?
(CBS)
This argument has been making its way around the conservative echo chamber. Wrote Brent Baker: "The broadcast network evening newscasts, which didn't care in 1993 about the Clinton administration's decision to ask for the resignations of all 93 U.S. attorneys, went apoplectic Tuesday night in leading with the 'controversy,' fed by the media, over the Bush administration for replacing eight U.S. attorneys in late 2006."
In light of all this, I thought it was important to compare the two cases.
The Washington Post laid it out like this: "Although Bush and President Bill Clinton each dismissed nearly all U.S. attorneys upon taking office, legal experts and former prosecutors say the firing of a large number of prosecutors in the middle of a term appears to be unprecedented and threatens the independence of prosecutors."
Former acting attorney general Stuart Gerson, meanwhile, wrote that it "is customary for a President to replace U.S. Attorneys at the beginning of a term. Ronald Reagan replaced every sitting U.S. Attorney when he appointed his first Attorney General. President Clinton, acting through me as Acting AG, did the same thing, even with few permanent candidates in mind." (Hat tip on this and the Post piece to TPM.)
David Burnham told NPR that what happened this time around "is close to unprecedented." He added this: "Now, that being said, when a president comes into office, historically, all the U.S. attorneys leave. And he appoints a new set of these individuals — there are about 90 of them…And they can be very powerful and influential in deciding which cases are prosecuted and which kinds of cases are not."
McClatchy explained it like this: "Mass firings of U.S. attorneys are fairly common when a new president takes office, but not in a second-term administration. Prosecutors are usually appointed for four-year terms, but they are usually allowed to stay on the job if the president who appointed them is re-elected."
They added: "Even as they planned mass firings by the Bush White House, Justice Department officials acknowledged it would be unusual for the president to oust his own appointees. Although Bill Clinton ordered the wholesale removal of U.S. attorneys when he took office to remove Republican holdovers, his replacement appointees stayed for his second term."
And here's CBS legal expert Andrew Cohen:
"It is true that Janet Reno, as her predecessors before her had done, asked for the resignations of U.S. Attorneys. This is standard operating procedure designed to allow the President to have in place his own federal prosecutors. What is different about this current episode is that a Republican White House sought to replace Republican-appointed federal prosecutors mid-stream who were by all accounts doing precisely what they had been asked to do. We now know, from last week’s testimony, why in some cases this was so and the answers we got make it clear that the reasons were not high-minded or lofty."
The secrets of tennis legend 
They hadn't gone to war with the wagons they had, instead of the wagons they wished they had.
They hadn't lied about the Wagons of Mass Destruction.
They hadn't turned the wagons over to the private sector.
They hadn't diverted appropriations away from funding the maintenance of the wagons.
They hadn't cut support for the horses that pull the wagons.
They hadn't fired the Wagon Masters for political reasons without proper justified grounds.
When you quote the CBS legal expert Andrew Cohen, what is that?
Good Golly! Looks like the liberals are circling the wagons!!!
Rehnquist was one and Miers is another. Prosecutors and supreme court officials and career soldiers are supposed to be apolitical. But now General Pace and General Petraus are both butting into civilian political matters which they are supposed to avoid.
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I think the credit should go to where the credit is due, the deck stacking along with all the corruption isn't the fault of the people reporting the news it's the fault of the actions taken by this very consistent dishonest Presidential Administration. And, I suggest that if you want to continue to live in your alternative reality stick to watching your biased Fox News Comedy Cannel.
You libs are always projecting what YOU are (hello liberal media alternative reality) living in a REAL echo chamber. You've got a lot of nerve telling other people they live in one.
It's typical and expected though. You've turned into an utter hack since coming to Public Eye where your default position is to attempt to discredit anything conservative through a stacking of the deck against them and then figure out later how to defend that position as "news."
You guys belong in the gutter of the ratings. Don't listen to me though, stay there.
Appointing more conservative Attorneys General would go a ways in securing that cultural majority. My first thought was -- nasty. But does it go beyond that? I didn't think so a week ago; I felt it was just "Hardball" as played by the generally more competitive Republicans and the democrats had a case of the sour grapes. Well, if Wasington state US Attorney John McKay was sacked because he wanted to investigate "dead souls" voting for the Republican in the close and ultimately Democrat victory in the Washington State Governor's race in 2004. If McKay's sacking was a result of his not being "loyal" to his Party -- a US attorney must be objective -- then it is indeed a fireable offense at the very least.
Obviously Senator Sununu is making a statement to his political base at home, New Hampshire being the "Live Free or Die" state, highly Libertarian, and acutely conscious of Attorney's General of dubious character.