Another Partisan Jerk

by folkbum

In the first place, [the president] will be impeachable by this House, before the Senate, for such an act of maladministration; for I contend that the wanton removal of meritorious officers would subject him to impeachment and removal from his own high trust. But what can be his motives for displacing a worthy man? It must be that he may fill the place with an unworthy creature of his own. Can he accomplish this end? No.

--James Madison, 1789

It's a measure of how far we've come, no? The White House's political arm, using Republican National Committee email addresses quite possibly to avoid accountability, initiates a plan to remove from office United States Attorneys who are insufficiently partisan. Even the incompetent USAs are almost left in place because they are sufficiently partisan. And then there's the cover-up, which has been bungled worse that Iraq WMD intelligence, and has revealed almost incontrovertably that Alberto Gonzales and others lied to Congress and the public--possibly to protect Karl Rove. (Scooter Libby went down to protect Rove, too, according one of Libby's defense theories.)

But to suggest, as James Madison does, that removing meritorious officials in favor of toadies might be impeachable, is partisanship. Whatever. Is it 2009 yet?

(Via digby.)