Abu G Nearing Cancellation

A Newsweek poll has 58% of Americans believing that "the ouster of the federal prosecutors was driven by political concerns. Those attitudes seem to reflect a broader view of the Bush administration’s approach. When asked if the administration has introduced politics into too many areas of government, 47 percent said they agree."

This fits neatly into a pattern of cronyism and corruption and politicization of everything, so it's an easy story for Americans to understand, despite the spinners on the right claiming that it's so confusing and relying on the contradictory assumptions that US Attorneys serve "at the pleasure of the President" AND that the President had nothing to do with their firing (he's the only one that can authorize them).

In a desperate attempt to save his job, Abu G has apologized to all 93 US Attorneys "not for the firings but for their execution, including for inaccurate public statements about poor job performance, according to people familiar with the afternoon conference call." Many have noted that, if he is apologizing for inaccurate public statements about poor job performance, he's essentially admitting that he lied to Congress, that his subordinates lied to Congress, and that the Administration spin that the firings were justified is actually not true. The whole alibi is that these federal prosecutors were fired for poor performance. If that's inaccurate, there's only one other explanation for the sackings: political considerations.

TPM has a nice timeline of events in the whole scandal, which I'm sure will be filled in by the looming document dump on Monday. Meanwhile, the President has that bunker mentality again, being the only figure in the government steadfastly refusing to fire Abu G; and also the only one who can do it.

And if you needed another reason why he should be fired, consider this:

NPR has learned that the Attorney General’s chief of staff resigned from his position this week, the Justice Department took steps to establish him as an attorney elsewhere in the building. Kyle Sampson stepped down on Monday after Justice officials said he was responsible for the attorney general giving incomplete information to Congress over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. NPR’s Ari Shapiro reports:

SHAPIRO: According to Justice Department sources, after Kyle Sampson resigned as the attorney general’s chief of staff on Monday, he was going to work as a lawyer in the legislative section of the department’s environment division. The Justice Department started to set up a new office for Sampson in that section, and he only resigned from the department on Tuesday, when the scandal surrounding eight fired U.S. Attorneys continued to grow. On Tuesday afternoon, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sampson only remained in the department “as a technical matter.” A Justice official speaking on background said there were discussions about whether or not he would be detailed elsewhere as he was transitioning out and ultimately it was decided not to go that direction.

When is a firing not a firing? Man, the Justice Department can't seem to fire anybody correctly. It seems to me that Sampson is being kept on so he doesn't lash out and throw Gonzales under the bus, which he's already intimating as a kind of warning shot.

Oh yeah, and one of the lawyers who met with a Gonzales aide to complain about David Iglesias? Turns out he's on the short list to replace him. So there's Brownie-ism at work here too.