Posted on 03/15/2007 4:16:57 PM PDT by personalaccts
Reno & Gonzales, Apples & Oranges Posted by Andrew Cohen
(CBS)Lawyer Andrew Cohen analyzes legal affairs for CBS News and CBSNews.com. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There is so much disinformation and misinformation floating around cyberspace these days about the firing of eight federal prosecutors that you would almost think people on one side of the debate and the other are writing about and analyzing two completely different stories. Over and over again, supporters of the White House, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, seem to want to compare the current controversy with, especially, the decision by President Bill Clinton in 1993 to dismiss all of the federal prosecutors who had served under his predecessor, George H. W. Bush.
To compare these two episodes is to say that when a dog bites a man it is as newsworthy as when a man bites a dog. The comparison simply doesnt work. As I have mentioned here before, every incoming president seeks to install into office his crop of federal prosecutors. Republican presidents have done this and so have Democrats and it is such routine that it barely makes any news. Existing federal prosecutors know that, when the president who appointed them leaves office, they had better start updating the resume. Like it or not, this practice is not controversial. It is a rule that has governed the game for decades.
So, please, lets all stop trying to compare the Reno 93 with the Gonzales 8. Even Republican lawmakers are growing uneasy with that inapt comparison. One legal scholar after another, and one veteran Justice Department watcher after another, has come forward to say that it is extraordinary for a White House to fire a federal prosecutor mid-term, or even mid-presidency, absent some extraordinary misfeasance or malfeasance on the part of the U.S. Attorney. Here is just the latest to do so.
The men and women who were fired by the White House and the Justice Department were not drunkards or dope addicts or bribe-taking sleazebags. They were not legal loose cannons or leftover Hippies from some Democratic administration. They were Republicans and had gotten their jobs in the first place because they had established themselves worthy on both legal and political grounds. Go ahead and read John McKays story, eloquently told last night on the Evening News, and then argue that he is not precisely the sort of person who ought to be the bulwark of our federal legal system.
Finally, a word about two sources I used earlier this week as we began this dialogue. Some cyber folks, trying to attack the credibility of eminent professors Stanley Katz and Stanley Kutler, took the time to research their campaign contributions. I do not know, and dont necessarily care, where the two professors I interviewed choose to spend their money. I do know, however, that when I asked them to name their best and favorite attorneys general, they both picked a Republican. One picked Ed. Levy, President Fords attorney general. The other picked President Eisenhowers attorney general, Herbert Brownell.
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There?
Actual title should be: Reno & Gonzales, Apples & Oranges
It does not matter you left wing lunatic because they serve under the pleasure of the President and he can fire them at anytime and no matter who they are.
Spellcheck!
I don't no. Thay mite be able too, but I dought it.
The threshold question is, of course, whether their gut, backbone, or spine even exists, let alone finding it.
Welcome to FR.
Thanks M. Thatcher.
LOL!
George Bush is like a guy I have known and done business with for many years in the oil patch....he is too nice. Uses that Christian approach of turn the other cheek. He has cost his investors lots of money....but he is so honest that all of us stay with him and frankly love him. The President is the same type of fellow but he really needs to take off his jock strap and let those big boys swing and tell those jackasses in Washington to go FO....and also the world leaders need to get the same message! There is a time for being nice and there is a time for kicking a$$..... The time is now!!
No they won't find those body parts---it's time for an autopsy.
These are not the best of times.
You're so right . Although I think the time has passed and it will never change . I've given up on the idea and hope.
Goin' to skool will. ;^)
I assume they do not oppose the Left because it is their job to maintain the pretense that there is actually any opposition to the Socialist agenda, while not actually doing anything effective
"Uses that Christian approach of turn the other cheek. There is a time for being nice and there is a time for kicking a$$..... The time is now!!"
John 2:13 When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables.
There is no their there.
The only true backbone I have seen in the Republicans are the great unwashed masses.
Thars there's and their's and they'res around these parts matey.
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