Paul Krugman lays it all out in today's column:
http://select.nytimes.com/...
Here are some choice excerpts:
...In case you’re wondering, such a wholesale firing of prosecutors midway through an administration isn’t normal. U.S. attorneys, The Wall Street Journal recently pointed out, "typically are appointed at the beginning of a new president’s term, and serve throughout that term." Why, then, are prosecutors that the Bush administration itself appointed suddenly being pushed out?
The likely answer is that for the first time the administration is really worried about where corruption investigations might lead....
...Won’t the administration have trouble getting its new appointees confirmed by the Senate? Well, it turns out that it won’t have to.
Arlen Specter, the Republican senator who headed the Judiciary Committee until Congress changed hands, made sure of that last year....
Previously, new U.S. attorneys needed Senate confirmation within 120 days or federal district courts would name replacements. But as part of a conference committee reconciling House and Senate versions of the revised Patriot Act, Mr. Specter slipped in a clause eliminating that rule....
As Paul Kiel of TPMmuckraker.com — which has done yeoman investigative reporting on this story — put it, this clause in effect allows the administration "to handpick replacements and keep them there in perpetuity without the ordeal of Senate confirmation."
Here is Senator Spector's contact information page:
http://specter.senate.gov/...
His office number in DC is 202-224-4254.
I suggest asking him why he thought helping the Bush Administration place itself above the law was such a good idea. Those in Pennsylvania should please consider writing letters to the editors of your local papers addressing this issue.