New at Reason

February 1, 2007

Why were seven U.S. attorneys asked to step down? Radley Balko investigates.

Comments

Pi Guy|2.1.07 @ 7:50AM|#

At ~$220,000 per salesman, just think - we could rid the country of 50,000 sellers of water pipes, rolling papers, and blunts for a mere $10 Billion (that's Billion with a B).

After that, we only have to eliminate the production and sales of toilet paper rolls, aluminum foil, soft drink cans, and fruits and vegetables and there'll be no way for anyone to spark up.

Victory in the WoD in is our grasp!!

|2.1.07 @ 8:12AM|#

I hate to bring up the liberaltarian-economic libertarian thing again, but I can't resist. Here we have my case in previous threads in a nutshell: conservative libertarianism-no sex, gambling, or getting high. Liberal libertarianism-I can't hire someone full time for less than seven bucks an hour or write off my 'estate'. I think I know which means more to my everyday life, and the freedom of millions vs. the freedom of thousands...

|2.1.07 @ 8:20AM|#

the Bush league is a scofflaw regime

an inept one at that

that Bush and co. conspired to defraud the nation into (a failed) war of aggression has spooked them into playing preemptive defense with the DoJ's roster

First Reno

then Ashcroft

then Gonzalez

it's as though someone threw the AG's office off a cliff

Thomas Paine\'s Goiter|2.1.07 @ 8:34AM|#

The DOJ answers to no one. They've actually become more outlandish than Bush in all regards.

|2.1.07 @ 8:39AM|#

Ken-

Be careful not to inhale any smoke from that burning strawman, or a conservative libertarian will have you arrested.

Perry Mason|2.1.07 @ 8:48AM|#

Yeah I pine for the days of the non-political libertarian Clinton/Reno Justice Department.
Weed was like almost totally legal.
They were all about sticking it to the MAN!

Warren|2.1.07 @ 9:21AM|#

Another outstanding Balko piece.

I thought transforming the DOJ into the Inquisition was Ed Meese's failed project. Come to think of it, this whole administration is like it's made from the most disgusting parts of the Reagan years.

Why is always the worst of everything that gets recycled?

|2.1.07 @ 9:22AM|#

I am expecting an announcement that the administration is shutting down the GAO in order to transfer more resources into Crusading Republicans Against Pleasure.

|2.1.07 @ 9:52AM|#

Thoreau
Conservative strawman? Did you read the article? Those are the priorities of the conservative administration...Were they similar priorities under liberal administrations? Bush is conservatism now, just ask one. I'd like it if conservatism was more like Robert Nisbet or Edmund Burke but what we have is what we got...

|2.1.07 @ 9:53AM|#

Clinton fired every sitting U.S. Attorney when he came into office, including those who were investigating his shananagans in Arkansas. U.S. Attornies are political appointees. The President can replace them.

|2.1.07 @ 9:54AM|#

The worst gets recycled because air bags that are full of shit float to the top in politics. It floats to the top in almost every publicly financed venture. Reward incompetence and failure with promotion. School systems do it all the time, promote to get them out of one place (send them anyplace but here) and on to be someone elses problem. This flawed logic is the norm these days since trying to fire a state of Fed employee is almost impossible (even if they have 90K in marked money from an FBI sting in their freezer). Did his Dem buddies demand he resign? Nope they just made it look like they were upset and took his assignment away, for now that is tomorrow who knows he may be the next Black Caucus Leader.

Two of the absolute worst teachers I had as a kid I have since found out are now the Principle and Vice Principle of a local high school. Needless to say they sent them to the worst school in the area which only seems fitting based on their abilities. Point being they were promoted to just get them out of their current positions and make them someone elses problem. Now they are the "leaders," at the school that leads in nothing except perhaps the highest rate of arrests for student bodies. Thus no one expected them to do anything to actually improve the situation at the school based on their abilities. They could not be fired as they were -Americans so they were promoted up and out. Those that promoted them are the same that will always claim its for the children when they want something like more tax money.

Stupid is as stupid does. Shame they are all stupid.

|2.1.07 @ 10:12AM|#

A first for me: I actually disagree completely with Radley.

There was a time in American government where public servants pretty much expected to be replaced as soon as a new guy (generally from the other party) took over. And that's the way it should be. This whole idea that public servants are somehow entitled to the position until they deem themselves ready to move on is what entrenches bureaucracy. Let Gonzalez whack 'em all, then when the next party takes over the successor can remove all of Gonzalez's appointees.

|2.1.07 @ 10:31AM|#

Well Kerry/Gore and the second guy they appointed as attorney general and the judges they decided to fire in year two of their second term for prosecuting the cases they decided to prosecute...well, they would have been worse.

|2.1.07 @ 10:34AM|#

these replacements wouldn't have been possible in pre-PATRIOT act days

from the NY TImes:

Ms. Feinstein said the department might be removing the prosecutors to take advantage of a little-noticed provision in the 2006 reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act that expanded its authority to make indefinite interim appointments.

Previously, a federal judge would appoint an interim United States attorney to serve until the Senate confirmed the president's nominee. Now the attorney general can nominate someone to serve without confirmation for the remainder of Mr. Bush's term. Ms. Feinstein, Mr. Pryor and Mr. Leahy have introduced legislation to restore the role of naming interim prosecutors to the judiciary.

|2.1.07 @ 10:37AM|#

"Yeah I pine for the days of the non-political libertarian Clinton/Reno Justice Department.
Weed was like almost totally legal.
They were all about sticking it to the MAN!"

Bad example. The last two presidents who came even close to softening up on the Drug War were pilloried by Drug War hawks. Take a wild guess at who they were. I'll give you a few hints...not Nixon, not Reagan, and the names don't rhyme with push.

Seriously Perry, you can do better than that. Have you run out of fat chick jokes?

|2.1.07 @ 11:33AM|#

If we were watching all this on the movie screen, we would understand that the plot is evil men infiltrating a free nation.

Sam Franklin|2.1.07 @ 11:40AM|#

T. learns!

|2.1.07 @ 12:13PM|#

I agree with KoWT. The issue isn't that the President fired US attorneys that were investigating political corruption related to his party, but that he now has the power to bypass the Senate in the new appointments. How hard can it be for the Senate to march down there this afternoon and strip that provision out of the (shudder) PATRIOT Act? Or do they have to find some spending to attach to it first?

Perry Mason|2.1.07 @ 12:25PM|#

pinko,

Carter-let 'em smoke paraquat who cares if their lungs disolve drugs are illegal.He talked decrim till he got into office and his coke snorting 'lude dealer got in trouble.

Clinton?!?! I have no doubt there were a lot more dopers on the White House staff but please,tell me one thing he did to soften up on the Drug War- Oh yeah all those mandatory minimum victims he pardoned right at the end.
If Clinton had any inclination to relax the drug war he had every opprtunity to do it as a lame duck. His Justice Dept was just as aggressive in going after State Medical Marijuana initiatives.

It never ceases to amaze me the way some people buy into the whisper FUD surrounding
Democrat politics targeting the "youth vote". Republicans bringing back the draft.Dems are going to legalize the herb.
Probably worth a few 100k votes every election cycle.

If you are referencing Ford/Carter era that "tolerance" was mostly social and the pendulum swing from the 60s.Then all those baby -boomers cleaned up (at least outwardly) and pleaded "what about OUR children!)


Or were you referring to JFK and LBJ?

Larry A|2.1.07 @ 1:26PM|#

According to the DOJ, one U.S. attorney was fired specifically for her poor record in prosecuting violations of federal weapons laws.

Back under Clinton the Democrats were pushing hard for more gun control laws to solve the major problem of "too many guns on the street." At the same time it was nearly impossible to get a federal prosecutor interested in a case involving criminal use of firearms.

They ignored felon-in-possession cases, which are slam-dunk. ("Were you holding this gun? Are you a felon? Prosecution rests.") Anti-gun folks cited statistics showing kazillions of dangerous criminals kept from buying a gun by the Brandy law, while neglecting to mention that none of them were arrested for breaking such an important law. And so forth.

In March 2006, President Bush signed the reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. Included in that bill was a provision allowing interim U.S. attorneys appointed by the president to serve indefinitely without Senate confirmation.

Surely you aren't alleging that the U.S. Congress wasn't fully conversant with all the provisions of such a vital piece of legislation. Gee, that's never happened before.

|2.1.07 @ 2:24PM|#

"please,tell me one thing he did to soften up on the Drug War."

Perry,

Carter actually put his neck on the line to suggest decriminalization of Marijuana. Do you want to deny this? Go right ahead. Pin whatever you like on Carter...cue "lust in heart" joke, talk inflation, gas crisis, Operation Eagle Claw, whatever. Just try to keep it at at least a fourth grade reading level and stay on message.

And Clinton?

A few nuggets from Clinton's first appointee to the office of Drug Czar, Lee Brown:

"[a] country shouldn't declare war on it own people."

"All empirical research told me that treatment works."

"The first order of business [is to] provide treatment upon demand for all addicts who wanted to overcome their addictions."

Lee Brown was a mediocre, ill-equipped, spineless excuse for a drug czar. What he didn't do, stay awake because this is important, is either ratchet up or maintain the level of drug war militarization as it was when Clinton inherited it. In fact, at every opportunity, he pushed for demilitarization.

Clinton's strategy?

Clinton's early strategy was to reduce funding for interdiction and support more funding for treatment.

So what happened?

After a sincere attempt to begin rolling back the militarization of the War on Drugs, a University of Michigan poll came out in January of 1994 that pointed to rising marijuana usage among high schoolers. Drug warriors in Congress, Democrats and Republicans alike, began to hammer him for for being "soft" on drugs. It was a political loser. Perhaps Sullum and/or Balko can do a little historical piece for you.

All those other hallucinations of yours about paraquat, 'ludes, the draft ...well I'm not going to waste my time.

Get your shit together.

|2.1.07 @ 2:27PM|#

Oh...the doper thing. Who the fuck uses that word anymore? Are you collecting archaic usages from the Reefer Madness era, or just more generally a little slow?

|2.1.07 @ 2:33PM|#

Why does every observation about Bush evoke a reference to Clinton? Who gives a damn about Clinton? It's a little late to rein him in, isn't it? I'm worried about the current officeholder because he's the one that's screwing up my country.

Perry Mason|2.1.07 @ 4:22PM|#

pinko,

I'm sorry you are so dense. Carter ran on decriminalizing marijuana then he proceeded to poison the marijuana supply. The belief at the time was it really would kill you- thanks to the chemicals the Carter administration was adding to the Colombian crop- the USs largest supplier at the time.Look up paraquat if you can put down Das Kapital and aren't too stoned.
(look up his drug dealing coke snorting advisor Peter Bourne while you are at it-helps explain Carter's hypocrisy and where the policy 180 came from).

Treatment? Interdiction? meaningless rhetoric.....Clinton did nothing to ease up on the Drug War- his Justice Department pursued it with the same zeal as his predecessors.Clinton had the opportunity to "make a statement" in his last year-with no political price to pay other than his precious legacy- he did nothing.

The most draconian excesses of "The War" were passed by Democrats in a Democrat controlled congress.

Senior Republicans have come out for full legalization- Schultz and Baker. Where are your Democrats?

Perry Mason|2.1.07 @ 4:29PM|#

Why refer to Clinton and what Democrats have done in the past?

Well a lot of younger and inattentive citizens are of the impression BusHitler invented
all the Statist evils.

When the Democrats are in power and shredding our liberty and rights the silence from the Left is deafening.

|2.2.07 @ 11:13AM|#

Perry,

There is always a political price to pay for trying to scale back the drug war. Paraquat...started under Nixon in Mexico

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB86/

You're welcome.



Oh, and you are a retarded pantload.

|2.2.07 @ 6:57PM|#

"""Well a lot of younger and inattentive citizens are of the impression BusHitler invented
all the Statist evils."""

You get no points here, if you wanted to give them a history less why start with Clinton? That would be a very poor history lesson.

When people shift from Bush to Clinton they are engaging in a "red herring" fallacy of relevence.

The red herring fallacy is committed by introducing an irrelevant topic in order to divert attention for the original issue being discussed (chaffee, 2003).

It's about diverting the discussion from how bush Bush sucks to how Clinton sucked.

""When the Democrats are in power and shredding our liberty and rights the silence from the Left is deafening.""

And while the Republicans have been doing the same thing in the last five years, the silence from the right has been deafening. The few people that had the balls to say something were called traitors in the right wing press.

Let me clue you to something, power wants more power, period. This applies to both parties. No party has a monopoly on ignoring the Constitution or violating your rights.

Those that have power, including 24 hour news channel pundits, take your pick, have more of an interest is stopping us for seeing the world as it really is and replacing it with their view.

Divide and conquer. By creating a sharp divide within the citizenry, left-wing vs. right-wing. We spend more mental energy fighting each other instead of fighting the common enemy of freedom. Then step by step, your freedom is being removed, and what were we doing while the de-freedoming of America was going on?

Calling each other stupid names and arguing about what the pundits said.

There are those who try to divide people and those who try to bring people together. Yin or Yang, War or peace.

It's important to understand which one you are and why.

|2.2.07 @ 7:19PM|#

I meant to say it's important for you to understand which one you are and why.