The Pugnacious Prez

What a surprise! Bush has decided to be pugnacious. Klieg lights and all.

Of course, the upshot of this whole thing with the US Attorneys will not be any sort of finding of guilt. There's already enough smoke in the air that the Bushies will be able to claim there were "concerns" about the performance of the fired prosecutors other than whether they were failing to prosecute Democrats enough or prosecuting Republicans too much.

On the other hand, the loud protestations that there is "not a shred of evidence" to suggest criminality here (see Tony Blankley, among others) is absurd. There's plenty of circumstantial evidence.

* Pete Domenici calls David Iglesias to ask whether he's going to bring down an indictment against a Democrat before election day. Iglesias says, "no." Domenici says, "I'm sorry to hear that" and hangs up. A week or so later, Iglesias is fired. Hmmmm. No evidence?

* Carole Lam brings a conviction of Duke Cunningham and starts investigations of Dusty Foggo and Jerry Lewis. Weeks later, she's canned. Hmmmm. No evidence?

There's plenty of evidence, but there's also just enough smoke on the other side to leave a lingering doubt the other side can point to. None of these guys will be tried or convicted because there's no smoking gun. I doubt that anyone is going to "confess." If there were ever e-mails or other written materials conveying the real reasons for the firing (which I doubt), they have certainly "disappeared" by now. After all, this is the White House that believes it's above the law. "Disappearing" an e-mail is among the least criminal of the criminal acts they've happily committed.

No. There will be no prosecutions. But, unfortunately, there will be a well-deserved cloud hanging over our criminal justice system even long after it is no longer well-deserved. Hell, if they arrested me for speeding, I'd probably claim it was political retribution for writing this blog.