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No Right to Question Attorneys General Firings Pat Boone Who tells the boss whom he can hire and fire? Other employees? Is it that way it is where you work? Maybe, if you're a member of Congress, or are part of a staff that answers to one of them. See, it's an accepted principle in the rarified air of American politics that if you want to maximize your political power, you stack the bureaucracies with your own people, just as fast and deep as you can. Before Franklin D. Roosevelt infamously sought to stack the Supreme Court — which he failed at, praise be to the almighty — this was already operating in our governance. And in today's bloated governance, we have to suppose it operates more than ever—because we have more and bigger bureaucracies in place. This isn't a Democrat or Republican thing; if there were an effective third party around, it would be doing the same thing. That's the way the game is played, and everybody understands and accepts that. You beef up your power base so that, hopefully, you can get the things done you promised, while you're in office. We the people don't always like it, but another election is always around the corner. And we can, if we will, roust the incumbents and elect others who will come in and play the same game, perhaps with results more to our liking. Story Continues Below
So what's the big beef about Attorney General Gonzales firing a few U.S. attorneys? Doesn't he have the right? Of course he does. Does he have to justify the firing to anybody, specifically the Democrat Congress? Of course not. Does the Congress have the right to question or investigate the firings — as if Democrats haven't done the same thing many times when they've had the majority? Of course not. So what's it all about? Is the American public really as dense and uninformed in the workings of politics as this Congress thinks (and hopes) it is? Do Pelosi and Reid think they can convince all likely voters that this is another Watergate, that if they and the media keep stirring up smoke and accusations of skullduggery and malfeasance, that they can make the president look worse than they already have? What do you think? The Bush administration maintains that all eight of the attorneys were dismissed for reasons "related to policy, priorities and management." Case closed. 'Nuff said. On to much more important matters like the economy, the war, health care, taxes … right? Hold on; Democrat fishing expeditions will provide juicy camera time for the needy like Sens. Schumer and Leahy, Speakers Pelosi and Reid, and many liberal news anchors, so the really important business of government can wait. Let's saddle up the donkeys, let loose the bloodhounds, and go fishing for something rotten, even if we have to plant it, or make it up! Maybe nobody will remind the dumb voters that Bill Clinton fired not just eight, but 93 of the 94 sitting U.S. attorneys (One was spared by the effort of powerful New Jersey Democrat, Sen. Bill Bradley) early in his presidency, motivated almost certainly by anxiety over some of their investigations pending in what became known as the Whitewater scandal. And surely most won't recall that President Carter fired U.S. Attorney David Marston in response to requests from a Democrat congressman whom Marston was investigating regarding financial irregularities in a hospital construction project. Did the Democrat Congress make any fuss in those instances? No, they just let it be understood that, by law, United States Attorneys serve "at the pleasure of the President." Hmmm. Oh, but now Teddy Kennedy accuses President Bush of using the attorney replacements to further his administration's "right wing ideology," and to ensure that his appointees are "reliable partisans." Horrors! What crazed ideologue would attempt such an underhanded thing, senator? You don't think that Nancy Pelosi trying to get Jack Murtha as her assistant whip had anything to do with his over-the-top, incessant attacks on the president and his handling of the Iraq matter, do you? That she might have thought he could help her in forcing the commander in chief to give in and let her run the war effort? Let's be real. Policy carried on through appointments that outlast the officeholder who did the appointing is big government liberalism's trump card. And bureaucracies that outlast the legislative bodies that created them practically own the whole casino. Literally for generations now, liberal elites and elitists have groomed their young legions of aspiring (and even well-intentioned) social engineers and fixers to manage the delicate business of taking care of the rest of us. And since there can only be one federal government, it's the casino where we all have to pay its array of economic and social costs, hidden fees, and penalties. Successful politicians, like, say, successful TV star, may come and go from season to season, may rise or fall or resurrect or be forgotten. But the bureaucratic structures—the production houses, the production crews, just like the agencies and the bureaucrats—will remain. In the left-right tug of war in the world's democracies, the left and big government side has an enormous natural advantage as long as bureaucracies and bureaucrats don't exit the stage along with the legislative bodies or elected officials who created or appointed them. It's not that Republicans haven't attempted, with some success, to follow the same strategy over the years; they just haven't been as good at it. I think that the American majority generally still feels conservative on many important issues, especially moral and patriotic ones, but they've proven to be liberally lax in insisting that elected representatives work to preserve our traditions. And when we do elect a conservative majority who can't seem to overcome the entrenched liberal bureaucratic determination to genetically engineer our national DNA, many get disheartened and sort of give in to a "politically correct" mindset. Our "consent of the governed" concept is ever weakened by a built-in bureaucracy that has become increasingly liberal, if not downright leftist. Jefferson's "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" seem conditional, defined by the ever-changing trendy whims of a congressional cabal, whose faces may change but whose bullying doesn't. So I cheer for a president who, though he's been very reluctant to use his veto power, has chosen to draw a line in the sand and say to those who would presume to hypocritically insist he fire his own attorney general for doing what Democrat leaders have done in spades, "I hire. I fire. Sit down." Hence, The New York Times may jeer, Senator Schumer may sneer, but the rest of us can cheer, when our elected president plays good offense in the defense of our conservative policy preferences. Against the kind of entrenched liberal U.S. Attorneys who show disregard for our elected president's policy agenda, we have every interest and right to be cheering from the grandstands when our team does push 'em back.
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