Schlozman and Graves, Compare and Contrast

It isn't any secret. I live in the Western District of Missouri. Today I tried to pay close attention to the hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee. They took the testimony of the last two former United States Attorneys serving the Western District of Missouri--Todd Graves and Bradley Schlozman. It has recently been revealed that Graves was forced out to make room for Schlozman.

During the hearing both men faced challenges. Bradley Schlozman has been accused of violating DoJ policy by bringing election fraud indictments just days before the 2006 general election. During her testimony Monica Goodling said that she had heard Todd Graves had been under investigation by the Department's Office of Inspector General. The following are two clips demonstrating how both men handled their respective challenges. Which one would you rather have making important prosecution decisions in your town?

I won't do much to set them up except to say that the Graves clip is far and away his worst showing during the entire hearing. The Scholzman clip is pretty typical. In fact, it is better than most of the rest of his testimony.

We start with Scholzman.



Now we move to Graves.



I sure hope the new guy is more like Graves than Schlozman.

Interestingly, Graves was recommended by Kit Bond and hired by John Ashcroft. Schlozman was allegedly selected by somebody reporting to Alberto Gonzales. A lot of folks suspect he was actually selected by the same team that picked Tim Griffin for Arkansas. Graves is definitely in the same class as the fired US Attorneys who testified earlier. Schlozman is clearly a Gonzales' man.

The videos are from TPMTV and are clips from C-Span's broadcast of the hearings. Here is a wonderful clip of Senator Leahy laying in to Schlozman. It's fun.