Today's winner is US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales....

So we have yet another case of “the cover-up is worse than the crime” when, yet again, no crime has been committed.

Was it crime when Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox? No, but that didn't make it any less a scandal.

There are a number of issues bubbling underneath these firings, but I believe the one that should really stand out to you - that should have raised alarms from the start - is the firing of Carol Lam.

Lam was engaged in an extraordinarily high profile federal corruption case. It's already taken down one U.S. Representative and indicted a high-level CIA official. It has been investigating House appropriations activity - notably Representative Jerry Lewis - and is rumored to be interested in related activity in Rumsfeld's office.

Firing U.S. prosecutors engaged in something at that level used to be nigh on impossible - and would automatically raise suspicion if it occurred.

I don't know what's going on here, but I'm certain that I *want* to know.

The ongoing saga of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales being at the eye of a series of political storms underscores one conclusion:
The country owes Republican conservatives a huge “thank you, thank you, thank you” for their successful effor...

Gonzales seems especially worthless:

Fitzgerald runs amuck - without a word from an apparently cowed administration.

No prosecution of the NSA and SWIFT leaks.

The mess with the Border Patrol agents. Guilty or not, it was a PR/management disaster.

Sandy Berger walks.

Its obvious he never established control over the liberal career appartchiks who really run the DOJ.

Then he sits before the Senate Judiciary like a deer-in-the-headlights as Leahy thunders on about terrorists rights.

Now, he's claiming ignorance; that part IS true.

[2] Anyone care to name an administration where this sort of shake-up didn’t occur?

Midterm firings because the AGs wouldn't prosecute the other party? How about every single other administration.

[2] Anyone care to name an administration where this sort of shake-up didn't occur?

Lying to congress about what you consider to be a non crime is still lying to congress.

But I guess that's been a tradition on the Republican side going back at least to Iran-contra.

News stories reporting that the Bush administration had considered firing all 93 U.S. attorneys across the country failed to mention that that is exactly what Bill Clinton did soon after taking office in 1993.

he only sitting U.S. attorney Clinton did not cashier was Michael Chertoff, now the Bush Homeland Security Secretary. At the time Chertoff was U.S. attorney in New Jersey and then Democratic Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey intervened to save Chertoff’s job. None of this was noted, even in passing, in front-page stories today in The New York Times and Washington Post, or in the AP’s story on the subject.

By the way, the mass Clinton firings generated some news stories, some complaints from Republicans in Congress, but no Congressional investigations, and not a word from Chuck Schumer.