{"id":10231,"date":"2007-03-16T15:01:37","date_gmt":"2007-03-16T19:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10231.html"},"modified":"2007-03-16T15:01:37","modified_gmt":"2007-03-16T19:01:37","slug":"it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-loyal-bushies-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-loyal-bushies-is\/","title":{"rendered":"It depends on what the meaning of ‘loyal Bushies’ is"},"content":{"rendered":"

In January 2005, Kyle Sampson, soon to become the attorney general’s chief of staff, was following up on an idea he’d already discussed with Alberto Gonzales, and which Karl Rove had chatted with the White House counsel’s office about: purging prosecutors.<\/p>\n

In the email<\/a>, which has the subject line “Re: Question from Karl Rove,” Sampson, who was then at the Justice Department, discusses with then-deputy White House Counsel David Leitch the idea of replacing “15-20 percent of the current U.S. Attorneys,” because “80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, are loyal Bushies, etc.”<\/p>\n

Now, that “loyal Bushies” phrase certainly sounds<\/i> like Sampson was using loyalty to the president as a measurement of job performance. As his email suggested, four out of five federal prosecutors wouldn’t have to be replaced because<\/i> they’re “loyal Bushies” … as compared to those others who needed to be purged.<\/p>\n

It’s pretty straightforward, isn’t it? Not if you’re Tony Snow<\/a>, who somehow believes “loyal Bushies” is a phrase with ambiguous meaning.<\/p>\n

SNOW: Again, if you want to take a look … let’s first go back to that particular memo, because in the sentence before it says, “This is an operational matter. We’d like to replace 15 to 20 percent of the current U.S. attorneys, the underperforming ones.” No mention of political loyalty; it’s performance. So I think …<\/p>\n

QUESTION: But the next line says …<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Excuse me …<\/p>\n

SNOW: Then it says, “This is a rough guess. We might want to consider doing performance evaluations after Judge comes on board. The vast majority of U.S. attorneys, 80-85 percent, I would guess, are doing a great job, loyal Bushies,” et cetera. I mean, I don’t see in there that there is political loyalty tests. It’s a characterization.<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Oh, come on. That seems to define a good job as political loyalty … the loyal Bushies.<\/p>\n

SNOW: No, I don’t think so. It talked about underperforming, and then it talks about the history of these things. If you take a look … what you’re trying to do is cherry-pick your phrase.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If Tony Snow didn’t exist, I’d have to invent him. Listening to his responses is like watching a Twilight Zone episode in which gall, reason, and shame have no meaning.
\n
\nThink about what he’s saying here: no one should pay attention to Sampson’s “loyal Bushies” line because to make note of it is to “cherry-pick” phrases. Snow genuinely wants to pretend the phrase wasn’t there, or failing that, that the phrase has no meaning.<\/p>\n

If I wrote an email with a variety of claims, one of which accused Snow of being a crack dealer, he’d probably raise a fuss. Using Snow’s logic, I could point to all the other claims that had didn’t accuse him of anything, and then complain about him “cherry-picking” certain phrases.<\/p>\n

Then, in the same briefing, Snow insisted, “What I’m trying to do is accentuate the key phrases.” And he’s decided that “loyal Bushies” isn’t “key” enough.<\/p>\n

Does anyone in the White House press corps take anything Snow says seriously? And if so, why?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In January 2005, Kyle Sampson, soon to become the attorney general’s chief of staff, was following up on an idea he’d already discussed with Alberto Gonzales, and which Karl Rove had chatted with the White House counsel’s office about: purging prosecutors. In the email, which has the subject line “Re: Question from Karl Rove,” Sampson, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10231","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10231\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}