While the Bush Administration is being criticized for firing, gasp, 8 U.S. attorneys (who are all political appointees serving at the pleasure of the president to begin with), people seem to have forgotten the firing of ALL U.S. attorneys in 1993 by the Clinton Administration.
As the WSJ states with regard to this case:
The supposed scandal this week is that Mr. Bush had been informed last fall that some U.S. Attorneys had been less than vigorous in pursuing voter-fraud cases and that the President had made the point to Attorney General Albert Gonzales. Voter fraud strikes at the heart of democratic institutions, and it was entirely appropriate for Mr. Bush–or any President–to insist that his appointees act energetically against it.
Take sacked U.S. Attorney John McKay from Washington state. In 2004, the Governor’s race was decided in favor of Democrat Christine Gregoire by 129-votes on a third recount. As the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and other media outlets reported, some of the “voters” were deceased, others were registered in storage-rental facilities, and still others were convicted felons. More than 100 ballots were “discovered” in a Seattle warehouse. None of this constitutes proof that the election was stolen. But it should have been enough to prompt Mr. McKay, a Democrat, to investigate, something he declined to do, apparently on grounds that he had better things to do.
In New Mexico, another state in which recent elections have been decided by razor thin margins, U.S. Attorney David Iglesias did establish a voter fraud task force in 2004. But it lasted all of 10 weeks before closing its doors, despite evidence of irregularities by the likes of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn. As our John Fund reported at the time, Acorn’s director Matt Henderson refused to answer questions in court about whether his group had illegally made copies of voter registration cards in the run-up to the 2004 election.
. . .
As for some of the other fired Attorneys, at least one of their dismissals seemed to owe to differences with the Administration about the death penalty, another to questions about the Attorney’s managerial skills. Not surprisingly, the dismissed Attorneys are insisting their dismissals were unfair, and perhaps in some cases they were. It would not be the first time in history that a dismissed employee did not take kindly to his firing, nor would it be the first in which an employer sacked the wrong person.
Filed under: 2008 Elections, National Politics























So what office did Hillary hold in 1993?
Co-President, remember? Two for the price of one? Does any of this ring a bell? She was neck deep in all this. Heck, she was the one who suggested Reno for AG and Webb Hubbell for Reno’s Deputy.
[...] to fire political appointees, including U.S. Attorneys. Hillary! and Bill had no problem firing 93 U.S. Attorneys when they came into office in 1993 despite setting back numerous critical invetigations (or more [...]