Posted on 03/30/2007 9:16:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
IN pursuit of a short-term political benefit, Democrats are in danger of establishing a ruinous new standard in American politics - one they'll come to regret and rue when they take the White House again.
They're contending, in effect, that the president and his staff should not have untrammeled authority to fire political appointees.
By inflating the dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys into a major political scandal with the suggestion that the act of dismissing them is a scandal demanding congressional oversight, they're creating a new political reality.
The American people - or whatever fragment of them is paying attention to the matter - surely now thinks that the president had no right to fire these attorneys and that he probably acted in an illegitimate way by doing so.
The longer this goes on, the easier it will be for pseudoscandals to be ginned up in the future whenever a certain type of official working in the executive branch is removed from his job.
That's just wrong - as a matter of law, of policy and of the proper functioning of our constitutional system.
What is a "political appointee"? The term refers to the tiny number of employees in the federal government. There were 2,876 political appointees in 2005; they comprise a tenth of one percent of the 2.72 million federal-government employees. They range in power from the secretary of State to a secretary working in the West Wing.
Unlike the other 2.7 million federal employees, they "serve at the pleasure of the president." That means they work without civil-service protection - and so can be fired at any time and for any reason the president chooses. They hold politically sensitive positions and presumably have been hired in part because of their loyalty to the president and his policies.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Lets hope to hell the democrats never get the Whitehouse again!
What part of that don't the Democrats understand?
Pointing out the obvious to Democrats is an exercise in futility, Mr. Podhoretz.
This is why I'm against "civil service" protection, at least as it exists now. That's right, I want the spoils system to return in the Executive Branch. If everyone in the Executive Branch serves at the pleasure of the President whether by being allowed to stay following a change of administration or by Presidential appointment, then in the event of scandal, there will be no innocent bystanders.
John, John, John. If you think that the Republicans are not going to rollover for the next Democratic administration your sadly mistaken.
Podhoretz is the one making a dangerous assumption...an assumption that Republicans will actually fight back instead of acting like cowering, whimpering apologists who keep bleating to Dhimmocrats & the Tired Old Media, "please, PLEEEEZ like us!"
"Unlike the other 2.7 million federal employees, they "serve at the pleasure of the president."
The part about not being able to fire the other 2.7 million Federal employees, like the travel office staff the Clinotistas got rid of so they could put in their Hollywierd friends.
No, the Democrats won't rue the day or pay a price. That's because the GOP seemingly has no ability to stand up and hold anyone, but themselves, accountable.
It'll never happen. The GOP is a pack of spineless wonders. They would never try to pull such a stunt with a Dem in the White House.
Didn't the Clintons manage to have Linda Tripp transferred from a position with civil service protection to one without, so that she could be fired for telling the truth?
Save for later ping
Podhoretz is dreaming. Democrats are hypocrisy-blind, assisted in large part by their enablers in the media. When they have the White House, their president will be able to have people tar-and-feathered and ridden out on a rail and nobody in the MSM will give it a second thought. Witness the Clinton White House travel staff, one of whom wasn't just fired, but was prosecuted on a bogus charge, just as cover so that a crony could be given the job.
I believe they did.
The Pod-man is right about McNulty's role in sucking up to Schumer and helping to create this non-scandal scandal, but wrong to think the 'Rats will have to operate under the same standards in the future. The most notable fact about the constant collusion between lying 'Rats and servile leftist DBM hacks is that the Demagogues are NOT held to the same standards and do NOT need to worry about the lasting effects of this sordid affair...... just the fact that it has been so wretchedly "spun" to date, with barely a critical thought anywhere in the MSM, shows that the 'Rats control the media agenda.
"Unlike the other 2.7 million federal employees, they "serve at the pleasure of the president."
What part of that don't the Democrats understand?"
The part that applies to a Republican when he is in office.
The GOP won't stand up because of an appalling double standard by today's media.
Democrats can commit ANY crime, pocket ANY graft, and it gets merely a passing mention, then tossed into the Orwellian Memory Hole..
But, god-forbid, a Republican should act in a Democrat-approved manner, and it's WEEKS and WEEKS of headline stories, even when they immediately resign...
When a Republican DOES dare to stand up, they are harrassed and beaten into submission by a leftist media.
The article is wrong in its conclusions. The big differnce is that future dem prez's won't have an attrack media going after them in the same manner of the repubs. Don't forget that it is the liberal media blowing this out of proportion for the dems benefit.
attrack=attack
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