2 Unrelated Items

I want to call to your attention something I read in the paper yesterday by Tom Teepen from Cox News Service. He says that a purge of U.S. attorneys began last December and is now up to 8. It sounds as if they are being fired for being incompetent, but they all recently had received good job reviews. [A little irony here that Bush and performance-related firings!] It seems as if a couple of these attorneys were handling corruption cases against high-ranking Republicans. The others were bucking Bush administration doctrine, for instance, recommending against capital punishment in iffy cases. A provision in the Patriot Act set US attorneys up for this fall. In the past, vacancies during a presidency could be filled either by temporary judicial appointment or by presidential nomination that would be Senate-reviewed. The Patriot Act was gimmicked so the president could dodge Congress and make indefinite appointments unilaterally! Wake up America!

The second odd thing was in the Washington Post today about Cheney giving the press an interview on the condition that he be quoted only as "a senior administration official". If the reporters would not agree, no information! The reporters got around it because he used the pronoun "I" throughout the interview, which they "kindly" used also! Does anyone other than me think Cheney is losing what little credibility he has left???