CY, what's going on? Did you delete my comment? If so, why? It was calm and factual, whether or not you agreed with it. I had thought better of you.

Are you familiar with the term "comment spam"?

It is defined as copying the exact same comment from one comment section and posting it on another, which is precisely what you did.

Please don't do it again.

I'll just quote Chuck Schumer then:

"Here are some of the falsehoods we've been told that are now unraveling.

"First, we were told that the seven of the eight U.S. attorneys were fired for performance reasons.

"It now turns out this was a falsehood, as the glowing performance evaluations attest.

"Second, we were told by the attorney general that he would, quote, 'never, ever make a change for political reasons.'

"It now turns out that this was a falsehood, as all the evidence makes clear that this purge was based purely on politics, to punish prosecutors who were perceived to be too light on Democrats or too tough on Republicans.

"Third, we were told by the attorney general that this was just an overblown personnel matter.

"It now turns out that far from being a low-level personnel matter, this was a longstanding plan to exact political vendettas or to make political pay-offs.

"Fourth, we were told that the White House was not really involved in the plan to fire U.S. attorneys. This, too, turns out to be false.

"Harriet Miers was one of the masterminds of this plan, as demonstrated by numerous e-mails made public today. She communicated extensively with Kyle Sampson about the firings of the U.S. attorneys. In fact, she originally wanted to fire and replace the top prosecutors in all 93 districts across the country.

"Fifth, we were told that Karl Rove had no involvement in getting his protege appointed U.S. attorney in Arkansas.

"In fact, here is a letter from the Department of Justice. Quote: 'The department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin.'

"It now turns out that this was a falsehood, as demonstrated by Mr. Sampson's own e-mail. Quote: 'Getting him, Griffin, appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, et cetera.'

"Sixth, we were told to change the Patriot Act was an innocent attempt to fix a legal loophole, not a cynical strategy to bypass the Senate's role in serving as a check and balance.

"It was Senator Feinstein who discovered that issue. She'll talk more about it.

"So there has been misleading statement after misleading statement -- deliberate misleading statements. And we haven't gotten to the bottom of this yet, but believe me, we will pursue it.

Seems to me that quoting Chuck Schumer could also qualify as comment spam....

Andrew McCarthy has a good column on this issue over at National Review. He ends with:

Meanwhile, Attorney General Gonzales’s “when do I run out of feet to shoot myself in?” performance has been more than matched by congressional hypocrisy, especially from Democrats. Most jaw-dropping, but hardly unique, is Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. Seeking the presidency, she is pandering to her Bush-hating base about the firings. But, when her husband took office in 1993, he terminated virtually all of the sitting U.S. attorneys.

It was an act of sheer political muscle and naked political patronage. It mattered not the slightest bit to the media that many very fine U.S. attorneys — some presiding over very sensitive, politically charged cases (including one in Arkansas involving the Clintons) — lost their jobs. Clinton had the power to do it and he wanted his own people in. Period. And you know what? He was entitled. If a Bush-41 appointee had botched a major case, that would have redounded to Clinton’s detriment. If the administration wanted to focus on health-care fraud or other Democrat enforcement priorities, the president wanted to be sure each U.S. attorney would be, yes, loyal to those objectives. Loyalty — not skill, not ethics — was the difference between staying on or being fired.

So we have classic Washington farce. The politicians on Capitol Hill theatrically castigate the politicians in the administration for making political decisions about political appointees based on political considerations. The politicians in the administration reply, “That would never happen,” before conceding that it precisely happened … without their knowledge, of course. And the political press is aghast.

The President can fire any U.S. Attorney for any reason - maybe he doesn't like the color of their ties. DOJ was stupid because they tried to insert a "lofty" reason instead of just saying that the attornies "wore the wrong color ties".

The President was within his rights to replace these people. None of the replaced attorney's were investigating him. This is a politically manufactured "crisis" that is way out of proportion to the actual events.

Clinton replaced all 93 attorneys at the beginning of his presidency, as many presidents have done. He replaced two thereafter, one for allegedly biting a topless dancer and the other for choking someone on camera.

This administration fired the Carol Lam, the attorney who was in the midst of following up on the Duke Cunningham corruption investigation, which included an investigation of (R) Jerry Lewis.

John McKay, a Republican US Atty from Seattle, says he did not see any evidence of malfeasance in his investigation of the recount that put Washington State governor Gregoir (D) over Dino Rossi (R). Subsequently Harriet Miers accused him of "mishandling" the recount investigation. Why on earth would a Republican suppress evidence of Democratic vote fraud?

Lam and McKay received 'glowing' performance reviews up until they were fired. As above, the administration has changed its story and outright lied on several points.

John Sununu (R) New Hampshire has asked for Gonzalez to step down.

This is dishonorable behavior on the part of this administration and its enablers, not a partisan manufactured crisis.

What was different about how Clinton replaced the 93 was that he demanded they submit their resignations and clear out their offices within 10 days. All other presidents had longer transition periods that staggered the replacements versus an immediate wholesale changeout.

But, it was Clinton's perogative to do this.

Under what conditions would you accept Bushs decision to fire these USAs?
From whom would Bush need to get permission? Should it be held to a vote from Congress?
Would he only need approval from the Judiciary Committee?
Maybe Chuck Schumer is the one to ask.
Who gave Bill Clinton the permission to fire all the USAs?

As for McKay, there was a pile of irregularites with the 2004 election. Several people sent McKay information and neither McKay nor the FBI spoke to them about their information. The impression is that McKay did not even investigate to see if there was fire where there was smoke.

SouthernRoots:

What was different about how Clinton replaced the 93 was that he demanded they submit their resignations and clear out their offices within 10 days. All other presidents had longer transition periods that staggered the replacements versus an immediate wholesale changeout.

I don't understand what you are trying to prove here.

Under what conditions would you accept Bushs decision to fire these USAs?

The same reason anyone should be fired: poor performance, illegal activities, etc.

As for McKay, there was a pile of irregularites with the 2004 election.

I'm going to take word of a Bush-appointed Republican USA about this over yours. He's a Republican and would have every reason to pursue Dem vote fraud.

But Lex,

When Clinton fired 93 it wasn't for poor performance was it? It was simply that he wanted his own people in there. Simple. Not only that, but the US Atty from Ala that was handling the Whitewater investigation got fired and was replaced with a Clinton friend. Add to that the US atty who was investigating Rostenkowski was fired also. But it wasn't political, right? Get a real life.

BTW Lexy - care to plot the Iraq casualty trend line again...just for the last five months? LOL. You might actually be surprised....

Lex - you have totally missed the point. USAs are POLITICAL appointments. They serve at the pleasure of the President. Causing the President displeasure can result in them being fired. Other "normal" firing reasons should also get them canned, but it is legitimate to fire them for lesser reasons.

Maybe me, or someone else in the VRWC, put a call into Bush and told him that we were unhappy with McKay's lack of action (as far as we could see). Maybe Bush agreed with us and decided that McKay wasn't serving the president's priorities.

By the way, it was a Democrat controlled organization that had all the irregularities with the election, but that was a sideshow. Regardless of who is running the election show, if irregularities are rampant - they should be investigated, the whole idea being to have a clean, legal election system for everyone.

Bush '41 replaced all 93 US Attorneys too. I don't have a problem with that either.

You think it's okay for the administration to fire a US Atty with good performance reviews who is pursuing allegations against congressmen in the same party, and then lie repeatedly about it. I don't. Let's chalk it up to another difference of opinion.

Here's you proving that a rising casualty average demonstrates a dropping casualty rate:

using the 5 months previous is an average of 3.03 per day. But if you go back 12 months, the average drops to 2.44. If you go back 24 months, the average is 2.36.

That's all anyone needs to say to you in any debate. You don't understand the concept of averages (though to be fair you do seem to be able to compute them). You don't merit a place at the table.