The U.S. Attorney Scandal, Explained!

Jim Taranto: OpinionJournal.com

We haven't written much about the foofaraw over the Bush administration's firings of eight U.S. attorneys, because we don't understand the issues involved. But a reader calls our attention to a transcript of "Washington Week," which explicates some of the issues:

Gwen Ifill: One more question for you, Doyle, on this point, which is there has been much back and forth about whether this is something which is unprecedented--this firing. Whether it is okay for the president to do it, because after all, as Tony Snow said repeatedly today, these people serve at the pleasure of the president. Is there a precedent for it?

Doyle McManus: Well, there is and there isn't. This one of those awful things where you go back into the history and everybody is still arguing about what the history means. Look, it's always been a bit of a tradition that when the White House changes in party, when Richard Nixon was succeeded by--who was that? No, that was Gerald Ford. When Gerald Ford was succeeded by Jimmy Carter, when Bill Clinton was succeeded by--when Clinton took over, and when President Bush took over from Clinton, at that point it's pretty much customary for the U.S. attorneys in place to submit their resignations. Now, Republicans are arguing that Janet Reno under Bill Clinton went farther and demanded the resignations, but even then Bill Clinton didn't fire everybody.

This is different. It's in the middle of a term. It's within the president's right to do it. That's technically true. But what even some conservative Republican legal specialists are worried about is this: are we sliding toward a politicization of that job of U.S. attorney? There's always been politics involved. Senators get involved. But are we sliding towards--and that was what was, of course, ugly in those e-mails.

Alexis Simendinger: Yes. And I think we should add, too, that we're talking about eight individuals who were appointed--politically appointed by the president of the United States. They were chosen by this president, so we're not talking about him being concerned about Democratic holdovers or some other president's choices. We're talking about his own choices.

To sum up:

1. It was OK for Bill Clinton to fire 93 U.S. attorneys, because he "didn't fire everybody." But it was not OK for Bush to fire eight of them.

2. Firing U.S. attorneys of the opposite party is fine, but firing U.S. attorneys of your own party is evidence of "politicization."

Makes sense, doesn't it?