The man who once wrought the most virulent malevolence towards Democrats in the 1990s has ditched his partisan garb to go after the Bush Adminstration in recent times. Now he is attacking them over the U.S. Attorney scandal and it isn't pretty if you are a Bush sycophant. He claims that the Justice Department is being used as a political football by the Adminstration and he is dead on here. Perhaps it is because he was a U.S. Attorney in the 1980s.
From Crooks and Liars:
While the Bush Adminstration's priority is to have the biggest puffed-up chest we actually care about the dignity of our government. Loyalty to the Adminstration is #1 for George Bush's underlings. Yet out here beyond the gates of the White House we long for higher standards when it comes to our national leaders and those that mete out justice in the United States of America.BOB BARR: Well, it's probably some of both. But what's really unfortunate here, both from the White House standpoint, as well as from the more important standpoint of what's best for the country, is the integrity of the Department of Justice is being used as a political football by the administration to prove who's the toughest hombre in all this. It's very unfortunate. And I'm not really sure that the administration has chosen the best line in the sand to draw here, so to speak.
Congress clearly has a right to inquire into the running of the Department of Justice, to inquire into the integrity of the process of hiring and firing U.S. attorneys, notwithstanding the fact that that that is technically a prerogative of the president. And rather than fight this, the administration really ought to be going out of its way to do what prior administrations have done, such as the Bush I administration and Reagan administrations, and that is take whatever steps are necessary to assure the American people that the integrity of our justice system has not been compromised.
|