In going through the latest from the New York Times in regards to the Purge there are some interesting points. Unfortunately, they seem to completely screw the pooch when it comes to why this was such a problem- it's the oversight, stupid.
more on the other side...
Don't get me wrong, there are some pretty fascinating nuggets here. For instance, there is talk about how the administration classified their US Attorneys according to loyalty:
The extensive consultations between the Justice Department and White House over which United States attorneys should be ousted started as early as March 2005, the e-mail messages show.
That is when Mr. Sampson, Mr. Gonzales’s aide, sent a document to Ms. Miers ranking the nation’s federal prosecutors.
"Bold=Recommend retaining; strong U.S. Attorneys who have produced, managed well, and exhibited loyalty to the president and attorney general," the e-mail message from Mr. Sampson said. "Strikeout=Recommend removing; weak U.S. Attorneys who had been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against administration initiatives, etc."
From the start, the "strikeout" list included Ms. Lam, Margaret M. Chiara of Michigan and H. E. Cummins of Arkansas, all of whom ultimately lost their jobs. But the "bold" list of stellar performers included Mr. Iglesias and Kevin V. Ryan of San Francisco, who would also be removed.
However, NOWHERE in the article do they mention why this is a problem. There is nothing said about why so many folks are rightfully pissed off. The Prosecutor Purge is a problem because the Bush Administration was trying to get around Congressional Approval. This is just one of their many attempts to put all of federal government's power into the Executive Branch and this doesn't even get mentioned in the article. The following paragraph is the closest they get:
The fallout from the firings came swiftly, according to the documents. Within a day, messages were flying between the White House and the Justice Department about reaction to the dismissals. Administration officials were aware that the decisions were likely to be controversial, and the plan for carrying them out included a warning to "prepare to withstand political upheaval."
Rather than bringing up the reason for the "political upheaval", it almost seems that the Times is providing political cover to the administration by making it look like there was reason for their dismissal:
As the months passed and the list was refined, a broad range of parties provided comment, either by directly naming prosecutors or raising an issue that touched on them.
J. Dennis Hastert of Illinois, then speaker of the House, for example, appeared in one exchange among Bush administration officials inquiring why the United States attorney’s office in Arizona was apparently not prosecuting marijuana possession cases involving less than 500 pounds.
Representative Lamar Smith, Republican of Texas, also asked a White House official to explain why prosecutors were pursuing charges against illegal immigrants only if they had been counted entering the country illegally eight or more times.
My hope is that this situation will quickly be fixed, and the press will report why this is a problem. If not, the Bush Administration and the Right Wing Noise Makers will successfully spin this into a personnel issue. Here's to hoping they eventually get it right.