Last evening (March 2, 2007)Dahlia Lithwick posted an article at Slate entitled Royal Flush--The purge of U.S. attorneys (partially) explained. It contains an excellent summary of the story as it exists today. She asks a series of important questions.
What sort of colossal error in judgment led the DOJ to can a bunch of perfectly loyal and capable prosecutors, name permanent "interim" replacements under a sleazy legal loophole, then publicly impugn those who'd departed with the claim that they'd been fired for "performance-related" reasons? Did they really think nobody would notice? That nobody would care? Does some incredibly cunning long-term objective justify the short-term fallout? Or was this simply a case of bumbling incompetence?
My guess is the full answer is yes to all of the above.
The real problem starts with the highly politicized Republican party of George Bush. Like the old Communist party of Stalin, party loyalty is the same as loyalty to the United States of America. it isn't but that is what they think. In their heart of hearts members of the Bush Justice Department truly believe they fired the prosecutors for performance reasons. In the eyes of a loyalist like Alberto Gonzales, when David Iglesias told Wilson and Domenici that he wasn't going to rush a prosecution to help Wilson's reelection campaign, he displayed a lack of party loyalty that not only justified but demanded his firing. Several of the other firings follow the same pattern. The fired prosecutors, for whatever reason, allowed their duty to the country to come before their duty to the party. As with many old time Communists who put country ahead of party, they had to be purged, fortunately in this case with a phone call and a damaged reputation, and not in Stalin fashion with a bullet to the brain.
I don't know how we restore the notion that loyalty to America comes before loyalty to the Republican party, but we must. For our country to hold together we all have to believe that the folks at the Department of Justice are straight shooters. We all have to "know" they don't play favorites. Otherwise we risk losing our democracy. That comment is not an exaggeration. The stakes are just that high.
