Probably going to have to create a new category for this "Overheard on Imus" business...
The great Crooks and Liars website had this up about the new repub talking point in this US Attorney purge. Basically, it's the old Clinton did it too crap, but upon even cursory examination it makes absolutely no sense. As Bob Somerby would say, "Hey, Rubes!"
Be sure to click through to this link where The Carpet Bagger Report does a more thorough job of explaining why it's bullshit.
Anyway, the reason I'm bringing it up is because I often see things about "talking points" and I rarely get to see them in action so quickly after I read about them. It's kind of amazing. I mean, I was literally reading about this being a new republican talking point to soften this scandal when I overheard on Imus the following conversation between him and Fox News' Chris Wallace...
IMUS: This Alberto Gonzales thing… what’s going on there. I haven’t been paying attention because whenever I hear something like this I just assume it’s all true and everyone’s lying.
WALLACE: Well I think that’s usually the way to go, in any administration, and, and here’s a fact you probably don’t know because it hasn‘t been reported very much,. Did you know that Bill Clinton, when he came into office, in1993, fired every US Attorney except one?
IMUS: No, I did not know that.
WALLACE: Yeah, it’s kind of interesting. I mean, and there were no congressional hearings. There wasn’t this kind of storm of protest. And that had not happened before. You’d say, okay, well new presidents come in… But he fired all of them except one, Michael Chertoff, and he would have fired him as well, except that Bill Bradley, Chertoff was in New Jersey, Bill Bradley spoke up for him and saved him, but…
IMUS: Why’d he fire all of them?
WALLACE: It, it, it, it looks lousy, because the whole point is supposed to be, they’re political appointees, but once they become US Attorneys they’re supposed to be non-political and there is, certainly in this email traffic and indication that political loyalty was one of the key requirements the White House wanted for these guys. (I THINK HE’S TALKING ABOUT THE CURRENT SITUATION HERE)
IMUS: No, but why did Bill Clinton fire them?
WALLACE: He, he, he, I don’t know the reason but I think it was, I comin’ in, and they serve at the pleasure of the president. Let’s get rid of all of them. Let’s get our guys in there. Of course there’d been twelve years of republicans, and they were all republicans and he wanted democratic US Attorneys.
IMUS: OK, so now what is the suspicion that these eight were fired? Why, why were they fired?
WALLACE: Well, they don’t all follow the same track, but certainly in at least a couple of cases seem to have been political problems. I mean the best, the most egregious case seems to have bee n the one in New Mexico, where the guy was slow on prosecuting the Democrats and got phone calls from two Republican members of Congress, Pete Domenici and Heather Wilson, and that seems clearly, that seems to have been a real paper trail there.
Notice how Wallace says of Clinton's firings, "That never happened before." He is clearly lying. Now, to Wallace's credit, he does acknowledge that something fishy (illegal) is going on, and there were political maneuverings around these firings, but the I think the repubs have pretty much given up on that issue. His whole thing was that this is normal. It's what everybody does. Every president. Nothing to see here, just America in action. Go shopping.
Anyway, it was kind of awesome to see it happen in real time like that.
By the way, the transcript is by me, not the network, but I feel pretty confident that it's accurate.
And as a post post script, Josh Marshall has been doing great work on this story. I'm too lazy to link to all his posts, but believe me, they're not hard to find if you go to his home page.
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