What Is The Scandal With Firing The US Attorneys?

(CNSNews.com) – President George W. Bush, echoing the “mistakes-were-made” admission of his attorney general, says he does have confidence in Alberto Gonzales, although he’s “not happy” about the way the Justice Department handled the firing of eight federal prosecutors.

Many conservatives are not happy, either, with the way the Bush administration is responding to what many consider an agenda-based attack. Democrats and some leading media outlets are out to get the Bush administration, leading conservatives say, and Alberto Gonzales is just the latest battering ram.

At a press conference with the Mexican president on Wednesday, President Bush said the situation involving the U.S. attorneys was “mishandled” — “to the point now where you’re asking me questions about it in Mexico…”

Bush said the reasons for firing the eight U.S. attorneys were “entirely appropriate.” He noted that U.S. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president. And as for political motivation, “it’s just not true.”

Bush said he did receive complaints about some U.S. attorneys, but he “never brought up a specific case,” nor did he give Attorney General Gonzales “specific instructions” on what to do about those complaints.

President Bush said he “appreciates” the fact that Gonzales has publicly admitted “he could have handled it better.”

“What was mishandled was the explanation of the cases to the Congress,” President Bush said.

“I talked to him (Gonzales) this morning, and we talked about his need to go up to Capitol Hill and make it very clear to members in both political parties why the Justice Department made the decisions it made,” Bush told reporters.

Bush said he’s troubled by the fact that both Republicans and Democrats feel like the Justice Department did not offer them “straightforward communication” on the firings.

“This is an issue that — let me just say, Al was right, mistakes were made, and he’s going to go up to Capitol Hill to correct them.”

Bush said “there is a lot of confusion” over the “customary” presidential practice of dismissing federal prosecutors (eight of them, in Bush’s case; all of them in 1993, when Bill Clinton was president).

What scandal?

While some Democrats (and Republican Sen. John Sununu of New Hampshire) are calling for Gonzales resignation, there’s a lot of grumbling in conservative ranks about the way the Bush administration has responded to the Democrats’ outcry over the firings.

It’s a “great lesson” on “how to respond when you’re under some sort of silly attack,” Rush Limbaugh said on his radio program Wednesday.

“The Drive-By Media, the Democrat Party, is trying to destroy this presidency,” Limbaugh said. “If they can, they will take him out prior to the election in ’08. If they can’t do that, what they’re trying to do is isolate him in such a way that no Republican will come to his defense or the defense of the administration…”

Limbaugh suggested that the “administration itself is having trouble getting its message out” because Republicans in Congress are too worried about their own political futures to tie themselves to the beleaguered President Bush.

If Republicans don’t feel comfortable defending the Bush administration, “go out and defend your party,” Limbaugh said. “Attack the Democrats, and make it clear what’s going on here.”

What’s going on

What we have here is a double-standard on the part of Democrats and the media, which has largely failed to mention the mass firing of U.S. attorneys during the Clinton administration, said Media Research Center President L. Brent Bozell III. (The Media Research Center, which highlights liberal bias in the media, is the parent company of Cybercast News Service.)

“You can’t have it both ways,” Bozell told Fox & Friends on Thursday. “You can’t say that what the Bush administration is doing is somehow wrong” — and then omit any reference to what the Clinton administration did in March 1993.

Bozell made it clear that he’s not defending the Bush White House — “because they’re just incapable of defending themselves…but the point is, if you’re going to report this, you’ve got to report this fairly.”

The Media Research Center has examined how five broadcast and cable TV networks handled their interviews with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on the Wednesday morning shows.

“None of the Gonzales interviewers — at ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, and FNC — ever mentioned that the Clinton administration fired all 93 U.S. attorneys in 1993. How can firing eight be a ‘crisis’ and firing 93 be not worth a solitary mention?” the MRC asked.

According to the MRC, TV journalists asked Gonzales 42 questions on Wednesday morning – and not one mentioned the Clinton firings (which some people believe were politically motivated). But – “Every network asked Gonzales whether he would resign — 10 times in total.”

The Wall Street Journal Opinion Journal on Wednesday explored the hypocrisy of accusing the Bush administration of abusing its power, while ignoring what the Clinton administration did.

The article explains “the politics at play” in the Clinton administration’s decision to fire all 93 U.S. attorneys — apparently as cover to get rid of one or two specific prosecutors before they could bring indictments unfavorable to the Clinton agenda.

“If Democrats want to understand what a real abuse of power looks like, they can always ask the junior Senator from New York,” the opinion piece suggested.