<![CDATA[For years, it has been clear to many of us that the good of the Bush team and not that of the country is the only motivation of public policy in the United States. The whole point of the professionalization of public administration in the early part of the last century was to create a government that, while guided by politicians, acted always in the best interests of the country based on objective standards, such as written laws and the Constitution.
The Bushies make their own law as they see fit. Here’s another example of putting loyalty to one’s party and personal supporters above loyalty to country and Constitution:
U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald was ranked among prosecutors who had “not distinguished themselves” on a Justice Department chart sent to the White House in March 2005, when he was in the midst of leading the CIA leak investigation that resulted in the perjury conviction of a vice presidential aide, administration officials said yesterday.
The ranking placed Fitzgerald below “strong U.S. Attorneys . . . who exhibited loyalty” to the administration but above “weak U.S. Attorneys who . . . chafed against Administration initiatives, etc.,” according to Justice documents.
Republicans, especially those of the Ann Coulter ilk, will characterize critics of this type of patronage as whiners who are bitter about losing an election, arguing that it is the right of the president to hire and fire whomever he wants as U.S. attorney. They are simply demonstrating that they want to take us back to the era of party bosses and government-to-the-highest bidder.
Anyone who supports partisan appointments based solely on loyalty to an administration in a sensitive position like U.S. attorney, particularly during a time of war, is not interested in the good of the nation. They are the kind of slow traitor who undercuts the nation until they can’t get away with it any longer.
It’s time for the country to toss aside its capacity to ignore these crimes, so there is something left of the United States when this era passes.]]>