Moles
by digby
I understand why the administration is doing this, but I'm not sure it's a good idea:
With all the controversy surrounding the Bush administration's firings of several U.S. attorneys, the question for the Obama administration became: What now?
And with all the muck that the hard-charging Chicago-based U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has stirred not only in Chicago, but also in Washington, the question became: How now?
The Obama White House has effectively, and somewhat quietly, answered that question -- for now: With Press Secretary Robert Gibbs explaining that the Justice Department has allowed all the chief federal prosecutors who have not already left in the changing of the presidential guard to remain at their posts, at least temporarily.
Of the 93 U.S. attorneys who served under the previous administration, Gibbs said aboard Air Force One en route to Phoenix with President Barack Obama, 51 remain.
The White House also says that, at the start of the administration, all 93 were allowed to serve temporarily. Thirty resigned before Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, and 12 more have left since then. And the 51 still serving are technically there on a temporary basis -- Obama hasn't decided that all will remain.
They understand that if they ask any of these prosecutors to resign, the right wing will immediately go into a full-on hypocritical fugue state and start keening about how Obama is "politicizing" the Justice department. It's hissy fit 101. They have no shame. But unfortunately, if they subsequently find out that they have some burrowed, hardcore wingnuts in their midst (which wouldn't be surprising, considering that Rove tended to have the honest ones fired) it will be nearly impossible to fire them individually because the hissy fit will be even more overwhelming.
This was always going to be a mess. The Bushies very successfully set this trap because the investigations petered out upon the resignations of Gonzales, Goodling and Sampson. (The Democrats seemed to think that was more than enough.) I don't think the public ever understood that the firings of the US Attorneys for refusing to prosecute for political purposes necessarily put all of those who weren't fired under suspicion. It's not to say they were all guilty, of course, but how likely is it that the only US Attorneys appointed by Bush who were pressured to participate are the ones who refused and were fired for it?
So, the administration is stuck either way. As I think with all these issues pertaining to the Justice Department and civil liberties, that the best policy is to pull the band-aid off and simply do the right thing. Trying to finesse this stuff rarely works out.
Unless, they know somehow that all the bad apples are those who've already resigned, it seems to me that with all the flurry of activity going on and the recent memories of the Bush administration abuses, that they would have been better off just asking for resignations across the board, keeping those who are career Justice Department types like Patrick Fitzgerald --- and taking the heat from the wingnuts. It's never going to get any easier and the stakes for the future are pretty high. The last thing they need are a bunch of political operatives in the Justice Department undermining everything they want to do.
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