The criminal justice system: one more political tool for Rove

Kevin Drum offers his analysis of the White House's new explanation [they weren't working hard enough on immigration issues] for the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys:

My guess is that they've decided this is their only remaining chance of escaping from this scandal with their hides intact. After all, the evidence suggests that the U.S. Attorneys in question were actually fired for partisan reasons: either being too tough on corrupt Republicans or not tough enough on corrupt Democrats. With the vultures circling and stonewalling no longer a viable strategy, the only option left was to confess to some lesser misdemeanor and hope that the press would buy it. A mass firing for policy reasons -- especially accompanied by an initial coverup -- might not look all that good, but it looks a hell of a lot better than firing a bunch of prosecutors because they were being a little too aggressive at investigating Republican malfeasance.

Will it work? I hope not. This is pretty plainly a last ditch attempt to head off an investigation, not a sudden attack of honesty from the White House. Keep digging, guys.

If this story doesn't get traction in the press, then nothing will. It's becoming pretty obvious (iif it wasn't from the very beginning) that these firings were politically motivated and had little or nothing to do with performance or with policy differences (unless you define policy differences as not agreeing to quash investigations of Republicans or to start investigations of Democrats).

It's an indictment of the mainstream media that it's taken them this long to get interested in this story -- so, I'm not that optimistic that there will be any follow through, but it seems to me that the misuse of the criminal justice system for political purposes should be one of the biggest stories of the year.