Well, since returning from the Big East Tournament I've been exceedingly busy. The medical practice, sure, but a number of other office related issues and family projects have intervened. Besides which, my piano lessons have resumed after a holiday hi...

When Clinton was President it seems to me many on the right simply wanted to nail Clinton on anything they could. We even had someone called a Special Prosecutor, whos job it was to find something wrong with the President. I don't remember much talk on the right about how important it was to protect the USA from Terrorism. The right wing was more concerned with getting CLinton on anything they could.

Terrorism didn't start on 9/11. It sure it home in a BIG way on that day. However all along its like the right wing was asleep towards the threats of terrorism. The attack on the US Cole took place at the end of Clintons term. Only a month or 2 before Bush 2 took office. DId we do anything about terrorism?

Why was it ok to weaker our own homeland by trying to destroy a sitting President during the Clinton admin? Certainly there were more important issues in the world than Clintons sex life.

So after 9/11 the Bush admin pushes for an invasion into Iraq. We are told they have WMD. We invade and in a matter of weeks Saddam is out. Now years later what are we doing there. I thought Bush claimed victory years ago. If the people of Iraq want democracy let them fight for it. WHy do our sons and daughter have to fight an internal war for them?

Jay Carney made a valiant effort to belittle Josh Marshall when he bagan ranting like a latter-day Martha Mitchell about a scandal in the Justice department....

I had the pleasure of spending part of the evening with our fair city's liberal intelligentsia, and was firmly schooled about something, despite its relative non-importance, that really has their panties in a bunch at the moment. Those fired US......

Congress can--and does--take an interest in lots of things. Things that will keep the individual members in office; things that will bring pork to their districts; things that will get them air time.

It would be preferable, at least for this taxpayer, if they took an interest in what's actually happening in the world rather than posing around. It would be preferable if they thought about the ramifications of a law they passed sometime before they passed it. It would be preferable if they grew balls and stopped throwing all the hard decisions to the judiciary.

But that's just me, I guess....

Poor reading comprehension, I guess. They can fire whom they like -- but Congress can take an interest in the subject and decide to restore its power to confirm replacements.

Anytime a US atty is fired, it disrupts prosecutions, that occurred with Clinton, so in general the problem seems to be that the left doesn't want US atty's to be political appointees but civil servants, which is I guess fine, make that case.

But political appointees as far as I understand serve at the will of the president and he can fire them, if he wants.

Nobody disputes the President has the authority to fire these guys at will. Nobody.

Because Congress gave up its power to exercise oversight on re-appointments, there's nobody to blame for that except Arlen Specter.

The specific firings a) have the stink of political retribution on them and b) could disrupt investigations and prosecutions of administration cronys. Certainly immoral, but probably still in Bush's power.

The thing the administration doesn't want you to notice is that the DOJ's senior personnel unashamedly, unhesitatingly lied under oath to (try and) keep people from asking more questions.

That's not manufactured.

It was 7 people. My big question is why wasn't the guy who prosecuted Berger on the list of attornies to be fired? Berger's butt should have gone to jail.

I guess I can't get all up in arms that the president fired people who served at his pleasure and who he could fire at will.

I have read some of the discussions on this at other liberal leaning blogs and I really don't get the outrage. It feels more manufactered than real.

Sure, the Prez can fire whoever he wants, but the knowledge that his replacement will have to be confirmed by the Senate provides a bit of balance.

The Senate signed away that check-&-balance in the Patriot Act.

The present hearings, basically, boil down to whether or not doing so was a good idea.

Moreover, WHATEVER the discretion, Gonzales is not privileged to lie under oath to the Senate. If he did, then that's a problem, regardless of whether all 7 fired USA's were downloading child porn and contributing to NAMBLA.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. My guess here--and it's just that--is that she had very vague instructions from her client and then went off and concocted a half-baked plan. As that plan went through the natural vetting process before it got back to her client, it got rebuffed.

That's not me as a Bush partisan defending my guy. I just think that's how CEOs generally and presidents in particular conduct business. There's a lot of stuff happening at "the highest levels of the administration" that don't ever quite make it to the highest level of the administration.

It turns out that “the White House” means “Harriet Miers” here, not “the president.”

Well considering that Harriet Miers is Bush's legal counsel that makes for a pretty fine distinction. It's like arguing that Scooter never said he was too busy to remember his lawyer did. Well yeah but the lawyer is there representing the client.

The actual matter of discussion here should be whether or not the executive branch can/should exercise authoritative discretion in determining whether or not to prosecute members of the opposing political party.

Why have well-trained, experienced lawyers determine the merits of a potential legal proceeding when you can prosecute by executive decree?