I’ve been wondering why on earth the Bush administration hasn’t fought back on the phony AG “scandal”… what was illegal or even wrong? Fred Barnes says that the president is so supine in the face of attacks from the Democratic hacks that he’s an enabler:
“When President Bush, at the tail end of his Latin American trip last week, got around to commenting on the controversy over eight fired U.S. attorneys, he was calm, reasonable, and even a bit apologetic. Little good it did him. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Bush administration was guilty of “immoral” and “illegal” behavior. The next day, Senator Chuck Schumer of New York responded with some of his usual hyperbole. “This is the worst crisis of confidence at the Department of Justice that I have seen in my time in the Senate. It is a crisis of confidence, a crisis of credibility, and a crisis of management.
“Schumer may be a partisan hack, but as the Democratic point-man on the firings, he is carrying the day. He guided Democrats as they transformed the perfectly legal and quite normal removal of federal prosecutors into a raging scandal. They’ve done this for raw political reasons: to mortify and cripple the president. And Bush, with his timidity in the face of Democratic accusations, has let them. He hasn’t fought back. He’s become an enabler.
“And look what he’s enabled! By not instantly and unflinchingly denouncing the Democratic offensive for what it is, an entirely bogus attack on his administration, he has allowed a mere flap to get out of hand. And now he faces unpleasant decisions over whether to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and permit Democrats to haul Karl Rove, his senior adviser, before a congressional committee.”