Saturday, March 17, 2007

Firing US Attorneys is tip of Bush's melting Iceberg

It’s hard to keep up with the growing number of Bush administration scandals. Every week brings new evidence and additional revelations.

This week Congressional hearings revealed that at least seven U.S. Attorneys were fired for refusing to follow White House orders, channeled through Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, to indict Democrats in a blatant effort to manipulate the November, 2006 elections.

Firing for disloyalty is a Bush administration best practice.

Four years ago General Eric Shinseki was fired for honestly stating that 200,000 soldiers were needed to wage the War in Iraq and top White House economic advisory, Larry Lindsey, met the same fate for suggesting, contrary to the administration’s $60 billion low ball number, that the war in Iraq might cost $200 billion, itself a serious underestimation.

We still don’t know how many other U.S. attorneys kept their jobs because they succumbed to the Bush administration’s demands to use their offices for partisan political purposes.

And we shouldn’t allow the newest White House transgressions to obscure our focus on other recent and equally repellent events including:
•the treatment of returning veterans at Walter Reed
•the White House’s role in outing an uncover CIA agent, Valerie Plaime
•its response, “you’re doing a heck of a job Brownie,” to Katrina
•its cover-up of the friendly fire death of former NFL player, Pat Tillman
•its cynical manipulation of Jessica Lynch’s rescue to promote the Iraq War

This cartoon captures it:
Scandal Du Jour

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