WaPo editorial board still not paying attention

March 26, 2007

The Washington Post’s reporting on the prosecutor purge scandal has been impressive and informative. The Washington Post’s editorials on the scandal still need to catch up.

Today, for example, the WaPo opines on the inconsistencies in Alberto Gonzales’ version(s) of what transpired and encourages him to set the record straight. But then there’s this:

Mr. Gonzales finds himself in this mess because he and others in his shop appear to have tried to cover up something that, as far as we yet know, didn’t need covering. U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president — with the advice and consent of the Senate. The president was entitled to replace any he chose, as long as he wasn’t intending to short-circuit ongoing investigations.

The Post editorial board isn’t dumb; its members surely read the paper’s own coverage of the controversy. And yet, it appears the editors just haven’t thought this through.

First, the decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys, in an unprecedented purge, did need covering. That’s why they tried to cover it.

Second, the president wasn’t just replacing prosecutors that served at his pleasure; he fired those who failed to politicize their offices to his satisfaction.

The Post, for reasons that defy comprehension, appears anxious to cut the administration all kinds of slack, and extend a very generous benefit of the doubt. If the editorial board read its own paper’s coverage, it would know better.

The editorial board has read its own coverage and their job is to spin the bad news. I’ve yet to read a MAJOR newspaper whose editorial board isn’t littered with hacks, shills and turd polishers whose only purpose is to waste precious water and suck up to those in power.

These tools think that they’re part of the Caligula Bush’s Court when they’re really the Court Jesters.

  • WaPo and Pat Robertson’s legal team on the same page?

    From: “Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel”
    Subject: Who runs the country? President Bush or Nancy Pelosi?
    Date: Mon, 26 Mar 2007 14:17:12 -0400 (EDT)

    MONDAY, MARCH 26, 2007   

    Dear Edward,

    If anyone needed proof … last week sealed the deal.

    It seems the new liberal Congress on Capitol Hill has made its mark, shown its true colors, and clearly questioned the authority of our President.

    With a new Congress in town … distraction will be the name of the game.

    Nancy Pelosi and her team are crying foul over the firings of eight U.S. federal attorneys.

    But the hard truth is this: federal prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the President of the United States. It is perfectly legal for him to fire any – or all – of the U.S. attorneys for any reason at all.

    In March of 1993, the Clinton administration fired all 93 federal prosecutors with absolutely no fanfare. No controversy. No congressional subpoenas or public hearings.

    But the House of Representatives – and now a Senate panel as well – have issued the ”OK” for subpoenas of key aides to the President. This is a significant issue!

    Stand with the ACLJ now in this imperative matter and voice your support of President Bush and his constitutional authority by joining our online COMMITTEE TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION.

    A constitutional challenge has been issued. The liberal-leaning House of Representatives is pushing hard, putting on the pressure, grasping at whatever means possible to defy the President. True to form, the political spectacle is being led by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

    This is unprecedented in United States history. The Constitution grants the executive privilege. A move to subpoena the President’s top aides, such as Karl Rove or Harriet Miers, and force them to testify under oath sets up a political showdown unlike any we have ever seen.

    Make no mistake:  if the President’s top White House aides are compelled to testify publicly, this issue will end at the Supreme Court of the United States.

    And we at the ACLJ are going to be there every step of the way. We will not back down in the face of blatant politicking and political pandering. We ask that President Bush stand firm … and come out fighting.

    Who runs this country … President Bush or Nancy Pelosi?

    I urge you to add your name to our online COMMITTEE TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION right now. I want to deliver to the White House tens of thousands of names of United States citizens who will be standing strong beside our President in the face of this significant issue.

    Stand with the Constitution and with our President today.

    Thank you!

  • whatever school committed malpractice by issuing Sekulow a law degree should rescind it in humiliation. First, the Constitution does not provide for executive privilege; it is a judicially-created evidentiary doctrine. Second, the underlying purpose is to ensure the President can get candid advice on policy – that is considered in the interest of the governed. But Rove, for example, is a “political director,” that is, his policy advice is not on substance of the tasks assigned to the executive, but on partisan politics. There is no argument true to the intent of the Executive Privilege that extends protection to purely political advice. I wont even get into the dishonest treatment of the Clinton replacement of the USAs, or the misleading omission of prior testimony of executive office officials; that’s all been we’ll covered here before and who really expects Sekulow to be honest? “COMMITTEE TO DEFEND THE CONSTITUTION IN THE MOST ORWELLIAN SENSE” indeed.

  • Luckily I can’t imagine any thoughtful person taking the WaPo editorial page seriously at this point.

  • It does seem rather schizophrenic to have first rate reporting on the one hand and third rate editorializing on the other. It truly wouldn’t surprise me if the editors really don’t read their own papers stories if the reason they were hired in the first place was to push the Wrong Wing agenda rather than solid journalism.

    I’ve believed that was the case for a long time and so far have not been proved wrong as far as I can tell.

  • WaPo: …something that, as far as we yet know, didn’t need covering…

    I guess the key word is “know”. They can see something that walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, but not KNOW it’s a duck. Conservative Blindness Syndrome. Maybe the WSJ oped page challenged them to a contest to see who can hold out the longest against the reality of the situation. My money’s on the WSJ.

    And Pat Robertson asks: “Who runs this country … President Bush or Nancy Pelosi?”

    I guess Pat the Moron didn’t get homeskooled about the three branches of government?

    But I would also guess that a sizable chunk of even his moronic readers would rather hand the country off to Pelosi than have disaster boy “running” it.

  • Fred Hiatt and others in the media are still focused on this as a messy and overblown personnel issue, failing to – or maybe refusing to – see and synthesize the new information that is spilling out daily. They have to stay on the point that the president can replace these prosecutors – even if it makes them look like stubborn children with their fingers in their ears, refusing to listen to any new information – because once they venture outside that narrow structure, it all falls apart.

    Fred and the others – like Broder, and that whole group of dimwits on Chris Matthews’ Sunday show – know that the rest of us have moved on to where the new information is leading, and all the stamping of feet and silly protestations will not change the fact that they are really dead in the water.

  • If the Wa-Po editorial staff had been on thejob 35 years ago, Nixon would still be president.

    Proof of why real reporters always know that the hacks and creative typists are the ones sent to the editorial department.

  • Yes, the Post’s editorial board is filled with right-wing hacks, but they certainly don’t seem to telling the newspaper’s reporters and blog-writers what line to tow.

    Dan Froomkin, in particular, seems to enjoy full autonomy in his non-stop tearing down of the Bush Administration. Thank god.

  • I once suggested that the Attorney “scandel” was like Travel(Office)Gate, in that the administration unnecessarily smeared those they fired when they could fire them anytime they wanted to.

    But the trick is this, the eight U.S. Attorneys who were fired aren’t the scandel. The scandel is the 85 U.S. Attorneys who WEREN’T fired because, we emperically know, they’ve been conducting four times as many investigations of Democrats as Republican’ts. The politicalization of the Justice Department is a scandel equal to Nixon’s politicalization of the IRS and the CIA. People just forget about the parallel because Watergate so overshadows all the other crimes Nixon committed.

  • @10

    It’s toe the line, not tow the line. (If you’re looking for naval metaphors, “cut and run” has an interesting history.)

    And rein in, not reign in. As in horses, not kings.

    And will people please stop misusing “begging the question,” which describes a specific form of fallacious argument?

    And anyone who wants to use “decimate” should find out what it means.

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