{"id":10348,"date":"2007-03-29T09:00:48","date_gmt":"2007-03-29T13:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10348.html"},"modified":"2007-03-29T09:00:48","modified_gmt":"2007-03-29T13:00:48","slug":"it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-political-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/it-depends-on-what-the-meaning-of-political-is\/","title":{"rendered":"It depends on what the meaning of ‘political’ is"},"content":{"rendered":"

The prosecutor purge scandal is bound to get considerably more interesting today when Kyle Sampson, up until recently Alberto Gonzales’ chief of staff, gives sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Reporters have already seen his opening statement and have a sense of his intended direction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to a copy of Mr. Sampson’s prepared testimony obtained on Wednesday night, he plans to address at least one of Mr. Gonzales’s arguably misleading statements.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gonzales has said the Justice Department ousted the prosecutors solely for reasons of job performance and not political reasons. But internal department e-mail messages show that a host of considerations had a role, including the views of senators, the administration’s policy priorities, legislative goals and the desire to give a position to a former campaign operative.<\/p>\n

“The distinction between ‘political’ and ‘performance related’ reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial,” Mr. Sampson plans to say, according to his statement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, the notion that politics is infused in every administration decision is not entirely new, but Sampson’s claim here is rather striking. He appears poised to tell senators that the decision to fire the U.S. Attorneys was<\/i> political, but that’s perfectly acceptable, because, so long as we parse the word correctly, political considerations and on-the-job performance are effectively the same thing.<\/p>\n

It follows a certain logic — Sampson says prosecutors who fall short of the administration’s expectations are failing politically. To fail politically is to be an “unsuccessful” U.S. Attorney. To be “unsuccessful” is grounds for dismissal. Ergo, the firings are justified, because politics drives the process.<\/p>\n

Anyone buying this?
\n
\nAs Josh Marshall put it<\/a>, “The use of the word ‘political’ is at the heart of Sampson’s and others effort to lie their way out of what happened here.”<\/p>\n

Sampson is using these multiple meanings of the word as a dodge. The charge against Sampson and crew is not that they fired them for ‘political’ reasons. The charge is that they fired these prosecutors for not using their law enforcement powers to help the Republican party.<\/p>\n

Set aside for the moment whether the charge is proven or whether you think it’s true. That is<\/i> the charge. That’s what this is about. […]<\/p>\n

[H]ave your eyes out for Sampson’s word play and games. This investigation is about whether Sampson and his crew corrupted the justice system by purging US Attorneys who wouldn’t use their prosecutorial powers to help the Republican party.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed, we need not be distracted by semantics games. When David Iglesias was fired, it was because he failed to prosecute Democrats to the GOP’s satisfaction. When John McKay was fired, it was because he failed to prosecute Democrats to the GOP’s satisfaction. When Carol Lam was fired, it was because she failed to stop prosecuting Republicans to the GOP’s satisfaction. The Justice Department and the White House wanted to use U.S. Attorneys’ offices as tools to benefit the Republican Party.<\/p>\n

Sampson’s right when he says this was “political,” but he’s wrong to insist that this was “acceptable.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The prosecutor purge scandal is bound to get considerably more interesting today when Kyle Sampson, up until recently Alberto Gonzales’ chief of staff, gives sworn testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Reporters have already seen his opening statement and have a sense of his intended direction. According to a copy of Mr. Sampson’s prepared testimony […]<\/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-10348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10348","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=10348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10348\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}