work against rank obstructionism in Congress. Having to work against it in his own administration is really shooting himself in the foot.

...at Justice himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_A._von_Spakovsky

We can only hope this blows up like all hell before November.

Are we sure he wasn't really Dalchimsky?

upwards of dozens.

Picking only DLC/Third Way adherents and some rethuglicans for appointment while leaving off liberals has hampered to an untold extent. Then on top of that to let blue-dog dems control his agenda in congress is the height of wishful thinking. Unfortunately he is reaping the harvest of all of this and we - the commoners - are the grass being trampled in the elephants fight.

One has to consider that he agreed with the Blue Dogs and desired many of the outcomes that have come to pass.

and we should`t pass judgement without knowing the facts. this is not the time to question the president and his advisors.

what is alter net`s agenda?

"this is not the time"?

Just ONCE let us see democrats take bold action against these slimeballs.

It reminds me of the saga of Bush Senior arming and training Bin Laden to fight the Russians in Afghanistan.

The operating theory was that godless atheists were obviously much more dangerous and untrustworthy than the pious and devout Taliban. Bush genuinely believed that Taliban fighters would never pose any threat to America. He believed that, ultimately guided by devotion to Allah, they would be easy to predict and control, regardless of socio-political and cultural differences.

Similarly, I think Obama believes that all technocrats have 'pure' intentions. Driven by desire for a high salary and recognition, they gladly cast aside partisanship to do their superiors' bidding. Republicans really love money, so double plus good for Republican technocrats. Only progressive ideologues pose a real danger, with their unpredictable demands and uncontrollable do-gooderism.

You have pointed out one of the great ironys of history.

the only political positions at DoJ are the top level of leadership - AG, Asst. AG

I'm fairly confident that it is illegal to fire nonpolitical civil service employees for political reasons, so cleaning house on day 1 was never an option.

Most of them should had been purged out and kept only those that demonstrated they would do the job.

As for those that can't be fired for political reasons. They need to find those that violated the confidentiality requirements and fire the hell out of them. After prosecuting them.

It is illegal to fire civil service employees for political reasons. Extremely so.

Those without exposure to the inner workings of the federal civil service may not be aware just how serious a move that would be... it would literally rock the federal government top to bottom, as a million federal employees suddenly found themselves having to protect themselves from the external political impact.

It would probably breach union contracts as well, if the fired employees were covered by one.

Those in appointed positions that are not protected from civil service and have to go through the process should not have been kept. The President can when there is a new term keep those he wants or replace them at will.

Those that don't fall into that category still have to worry about violating laws such as the confidentiality that was mentioned. Maybe violating confidentiality would also make one ineligible to hold that position in addition to being subject to criminal action.

at the end of BushCo*.

Many of those people were/are also unqualified for those same positions and took the place of people who were qualified.

Yeah, it would have been a mess, but it would have stripped one more layer off the onion of corruption that was the Bush* maladministraton.

gone completely by some responders on this thread.

That's what the Republicans called their ploy to transfer a lot of their political appointees to civil service positions before Bush left office.

Don't you remember the push to hire "loyal Bushies"? Do you think that only applied to U S Attorneys?

AGs and US Attorneys are appointed positions, so they are inherently political in nature.

I got the sense from the article that the leaks are coming from career employees, which is a different set of people. The US Attorneys can be fired at the pleasure of the President, Clinton in fact replaced almost every last one when he got into office. But the career civil service people are under a different set of rules and it would be a major scandal if the careerist ranks were politically culled.

ALSO contrary to the rules...

Rove's political firings at Justice made it much harder politically for this administration to do what they needed to do. Case in point were the Republican U.S. Attorneys that refused to resign when the President took office, even though that was something that had always been done as a matter of course.

most new administrations clear out all these positions unless they are the same party

fired the existing federal attorneys in the various states and appointed his own.

The politicization of the Justice Department was alleged to be extreme under Bush.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_controversy

Around the beginning of his second term, Bush tried to fire some of the attorneys he had appointed at the beginning of his first term. It was alleged that the attorneys were fired for acting in a politically independent manner and not supporting certain interests of the Republican Party as they carried out their duties. Specifically, some attorneys allegedly did not indict Democrats when the administration wanted them to do so.

I suspect that Obama sincerely wanted to avoid the controversy of what would appear to be a very political cleansing of the Justice Department.

Obama may have overestimated the professionalism of some of the Republican attorneys that were appointed by Bush.

Political adversaries in leadership positions in the Justice Department have a huge potential for damaging a sitting president's administration. Doing the traditional thing and appointing new attorneys to the lead posts in various states is a no-brainer in my view.

What shocks me the most is the fact that Obama retained the Bush Alabama team in spite of allegations that they prosecuted Don Siegelman for political purposes. In my opinion, even if false, those allegations should have put Obama on notice that he should replace them with politically neutral attorneys.

Was Obama naive, duplicitous or careless? I am inclined to think he was naive. But I am hopefully wrong. We will probably find out during this election season.

Know thyself is sometimes not enough. Sometimes thou must know thine adversary.

I wonder whether Obama is learning to know his adversaries. Time will tell. Maybe he is just too much of an optimist when it comes to Republicans.

Here is a short article about the appointment practices to the normally four-year U.S. attorney position.

How U.S. Attorneys are Appointed

U.S. Attorneys are appointed by the President of the United States for four year terms. Their appointments must be confirmed by a majority vote of the U.S. Senate.

By law, U.S. Attorneys are subject to removal from their posts by the President of the United States.

While most U.S. Attorneys serve full four-year terms, usually corresponding to the terms of the president who appointed them, mid-term vacancies do occur.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscourtsystem/a/usattorneys.htm

From the Wiki article you linked:

A Department of Justice list noted that "in 1981, Reagan's first year in office, 71 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys. In 1993, Clinton's first year, 80 of 93 districts had new U.S. attorneys." Similarly, a Senate study noted that "Reagan replaced 89 of the 93 U.S. attorneys in his first two years in office. President Clinton had 89 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years, and President Bush had 88 new U.S. attorneys in his first two years."[179]



In contrast...

http://www.mainjustice.com/2009/10/02/one-third-of-us-attorneys-are-bush-holdovers/

More than eight months after President Barack Obama took office, one third of the country’s U.S. Attorney offices are still run by prosecutors appointed during the administration of Republican George W. Bush, according to a review of data by Main Justice.

At this point in October 2001 — after Bush succeeded Democrat Bill Clinton – less than 9 percent of the slots were occupied by Clinton holdovers.


Three of the previous four Presidents replaced almost all US attorneys, without scandal; the Bush scandal only occurred when he tried to replace his own appointments before their terms were up.

Yet somehow Obama is uniquely politically constrained not to do the same exact thing both his immediate predecessors did. Doesn't it seem like we hear that excuse a lot, Obama can't do this because he's got to play the game, we got super duper hyper chess going on here just be patient, and so on and so forth.

Remember, when Obama came into office, he did so with more political capital than any politician since at least Reagan, and possibly as far back as JFK. And he came into office with a Congress solidly controlled in both chambers by his own party.

And then he wasted all that. He blew his political capital on a horrendous health care bill that failed to solve any of the problems it was allegedly intended to solve. Had he stepped up to the issue of the day (severe economic crisis), rather than the issue of his preference, who knows how much pain would not have been suffered by the regular folks in this country? Not once was he willing to put himself on the line for us and get us a real solution to immediate and pressing issues. He always let Nancy Pelosi lead, or Harry Reid lead. He never took responsibility for anything. He took Harry Truman's slogan "The Buck Stops Here" and inserted the words "Anywhere But".

I just can't believe the excuses anymore. At the end of this month he will have been President for three full years. At some point one must acknowledge that someone who gives a half-effort at everything over and over for years never really wanted to succeed in the first place.

Somehow, Obama seems to lack confidence and therefore can't just plow ahead and do the right thing.

Obama needs to buy himself 40 acres and a tractor and learn to work with and against the forces of nature. Truman was known for his stubbornness. He learned it the hard way -- by watching his father fail in business and surviving some failures himself. Somehow, that made Truman as tough as nails. Obama lacks the toughness. It's a shame.