It's the Lack of Integrity, Stupid!

Rightly and appropriately, the apparent almost-entirely partisan firing of Federal District Attorneys is drawing a rash of attention. I'd put hard money on Gonzales going down soon - he seemingly has only one supporter at this point, and that person is a notorious flake, liar, and ne'er-do-well, with a reputation for blind loyalty and no ability to get any job done properly.

While this would be a richly-deserved reward for one of the more sycophantic, anti-patriotic, unAmerican and anti-democratic folks to hold this high office in years, it would be absurd to let him gather the badness to his chest and absolve others.

Rove as just one example should be already indicted and under oath, for multiple felonious offenses, several publically admitted already as I recall. Cheney - naked with a hungry Komodo Dragon would be a reasonable proposition. Screw the Other Priorities.

Proper justice for the smirking dim son requires some further creative pondering. It would be fun to have it involve some complexity and perhaps several levels of nuance and subtletly before he confronts his demon - e.g. an unmedicated Laura, finally recalling her librarian vows and sensing what her vacuity has caused the country to lose.

This story, as with so many about the Bush unministration, is all about Integrity. They didn't have it when they were illegally gifted the office, they ignored the concept in most if not all appointments, and they have never had any respect for Integrity as a principle in their operations or their lives. I believe true patriotic Americans and others throughout the world devoted to human rights, instinctively know that lack of integrity spells failure. That is what is out there for all to see painted in the color of blood in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

As a result of the widening ripples, a person appropriately and actively pursuing news (vs. couch-potato-ing and/or dallying with their WSJ, Fox, Limbaugh, and Washington Times) can find any manner of material on the subject. Having processed thousands of words on the topic in the last few days I was disinclined to post again on the subject until I ran into this at Anonymous Liberal, under the admirable title "Unparalleled Hubris":

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We may never know for certain whether Carol Lam was fired because she chose to prosecute Duke Cunningham, Dusty Foggo, and other high-ranking Republicans (though that's certainly a reasonable inference at this point). No matter what the real reason was, however, we can be absolutely certain that her firing was an act of unparalleled hubris on the part of the Bush administration. As Josh Marshall put it last week:

What people tend to overlook is that for most White Houses, a US attorney involved in such a politically charged and ground-breaking corruption probe would have been untouchable, even if she'd run her office like a madhouse and was offering free twinkies to every illegal who made it across the border.

The fact that the Bush administration thought it could fire Carol Lam without suffering any significant political blowback is just astounding, and it's a testament to how anemic Congressional and media oversight has been over the last six years. Again, regardless of the real reasons for Lam's dismissal, the White House and Attorney General's office clearly thought that they could replace a prosecutor who had initiated a number of high-profile investigations into Republican politicians without drawing any real scrutiny from the media or Congress.

It's as if they had grown so accustomed to the low-gravity environment of Republican congressional control that their political instincts had atrophied and left them unable to function in a universe where Congress and the media actually do what they are supposed to do: ask questions when things don't smell right.

Even more troubling, though, is the very real possibility that the Bush administration intended this firing to look exactly how it looked, at least to a certain audience. While the administration may have expected that Congress and the media would ignore the story, those responsible for the firings may well have hoped that the other U.S. Attorneys around the country--who all knew who Carol Lam was and what cases she was pursuing--would draw the obvious inference.

The conventional wisdom seems to be that this was a poorly-disguised act of political retribution. I don't think that's right. I don't think it was meant to be disguised. I think the Bush administration was trying to send a message here and they just didn't think anyone but the intended recipients--the remaining U.S. Attorneys--would be paying any attention.