Incidentally -- as has been pointed out numerous times -- it's traditional custom for each President to fire the previous President's US attorneys and appoint his own at the START of his administration. Reagan did it; Bush Sr. did it. It's unprecedented for an administration to do what Bush Jr.'s did, and start firing them suddenly in the MIDDLE of his administration just when they were starting to poke around in affairs that might be embarrassing to him politically -- which, of course, is what the entire fuss has been about. (I await with delight Bitsy's comments on the Saturday Night Massacre, and indeed on Watergate in general. After all, anyone who denies with a straight face that Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms were racists is obviously capable of flights of fancy that can leave Tolkien completely in the shade.)

And as for Armitage supposedly being the "culprit" in the Plame affair: please. 12 good men and true unanimously concluded -- on the basis of multiple lines of evidence presented by a Republican prosecutor -- that Scooter Libby had committed perjury. And what he was covering up was that -- after Armitage had ACCIDENTALLY spilled the beans about Plame's covert status to only one reporter (which he immediately confessed to Fitzgerald at the very start of the investigation, without even being ordered to testify) -- Libby and Rove eagerly and DELIBERATELY called one additional reporter after another to make sure the news got spread as far as possible, and then tried to deny that they'd done it. (As the AP pointed out in an article in late 2004, Rove was in fact privately confessing that fact to Fitzgerald right in the middle of the 2004 general-election campaign at exactly the same time that the White House was repeatedly denying that Rove had ever talked to ANY reporter about Plame at all.) However, Rove managed to escape prosecution for perjury, because Fitzgerald managed to break those two reporters and get their confessions that Libby and Rove had been their sources just before Rove was planning to testify officially to Fitzgerald, giving him time to change his story and say that he'd somehow completely "forgotten" about revealing Plame's status -- whereas Libby had already testified, and gone into great detail as to how he KNEW for absolute certain that he'd never spilled Plame's identity to any reporter.

And by the way, I note that yet again today, there's nothing on the wires about the ME's report. wouldn't a clear cut case of suicide get a ruling a bit faster than this?

When you're dealing with the Clintons there's not only a reason, but a POLITICAL reason behind everything fliping thing they do

NIH isn't sufficiently political?

Why on earth would "I didn't put them there" be a problem, unless Clinton suspected that they wouldn't prosecute members of the Republican party, as the Democrats in the WH demanded?

It's the political equivalent of NIH syndrome, I would imagine. Still, there's a difference between a changing of the guard, and punishing the guard.

Why on earth would "I didn't put them there" be a problem, unless Clinton suspected that they wouldn't prosecute members of the Republican party, as the Democrats in the WH demanded?

For no reason? You know better, don't you?

Oh well of course there was a reason (there always is). But "because I didn't put them there" is an acceptable reason for firing them, while "because they didn't prosecute members of the opposing party like I wanted" isn't acceptable.

In any event, the woman was listed in 'who's who'

Listed as what? "Valerie Plame, aka Valerie Wilson, wife of Joseph Wilson and undercover CIA spook"?

I don't lump murder as a "symptom" of corruption

Heh... Search string: "Hoffa"

The fact that somebody told reporters Valerie Plame's real name, while she was an undercover operative for the CIA, is very clear cut.

Yep. Thing is, they knew going into the investigation Armatage was the culprit there.. and by no stretch of anyone's imagination is he to be considered a Bush loyalist, sorry. In any event, the woman was listed in 'who's who'... I mean come on, here.

Nobody was saying he can't fire them, but Clinton fired them all at once at the start of his term, for no reason

For no reason? You know better, don't you?

But again, it's an issue of trust, not just to that point, but with corruption in general, of which political murder is only one of the many possible symptoms.

I don't lump murder as a "symptom" of corruption. There's a world of difference between taking lobbyist kickbacks and killing somebody.

...which is about as credible as Kucinich's nonsense....

Kucinish is trying to impeach the president on allegations of getting us into Iraq using knowingly false statements. Whether they knew they were false, or believed they were false, or whether they were responsible for getting us into Iraq, is not clear-cut. The fact that somebody told reporters Valerie Plame's real name, while she was an undercover operative for the CIA, is very clear cut.

They serve at the plasure of the President... As was argued by the Democrats after Clinton did it.

Nobody was saying he can't fire them, but Clinton fired them all at once at the start of his term, for no reason. These were fired after resisting pressure for them to prosecute certain political cases that they did not feel should be prosecuted. Here in Florida you can fire an employee for no reason, but you can't fire them for the wrong reasons, I believe the same holds in the Justice Department.

This is absolutely shocking and terrible news. Weapons laws in this country may have prevented this tragedy if they were enforced properly

Has nothing to do with it. What would ahve prevented him from driving off the cliff he was parked in front of? Would that style of death make you feel better?

I'm pretty sure people weren't voting for Obama because they thought Hillary might kill them and make it look like a suicide

Nice twist.
But again, it's an issue of trust, not just to that point, but with corruption in general, of which political murder is only one of the many possible symptoms.

I was referring to the Plame case

...which is about as credible as Kucinich's nonsense....

Justice Department firings, etc.

They serve at the plasure of the President... As was argued by the Democrats after Clinton did it.

End of story.