Attorney-Gate

Matthew Yglesias on why firing US Attorney's for not being political hacks might be a bad idea.

Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush in an election, took office a few months later, and swiftly fired all of Bush's appointees for US Attorney jobs. He then replaced them with people chosen, in practice, by the relevant local political stakeholders -- that state's Democratic Senators, if any, and a more complicated process in states represented by two Republicans. The message this sends to people working in US Attorney's offices throughout the country is that . . . US Attorneys will lose their jobs if the partisan control of the White House switched. George W. Bush, by contrast, fired a handful of US Attorneys who had displeased the Bush team's political fixers, under circumstances where (contrary to historic practice) the White House got to hand pick their successor. The message this sends to federal prosecutors throughout the land is that US Attorneys' are now considered part-and-parcel of George W. Bush's political team and that those who fail to act accordingly will be sacked.

Gonzales even admitted that things shouldn't have been handled the way there were. What does it take for people to get disgusted any more? Have we become desensitized?