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….the U.S. Attorney drama, David Iglesias has an Op Ed in today’s New York Times titled “Why I Was Fired.” Here’s a salient snippet to get you started:
“…United States attorneys have a long history of being insulated from politics. Although we receive our appointments through the political process (I am a Republican who was recommended by Senator Pete Domenici), we are expected to be apolitical once we are in office. I will never forget John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, telling me during the summer of 2001 that politics should play no role during my tenure. I took that message to heart. Little did I know that I could be fired for not being political….”
What a surprise. This guy is being dishonest or is the most naive guy around. Tell me that Democratic U.S. Attorneys weren’t political. Things like that happen in life all of the time. People are told to do the “right thing” but with a wink of the eye added when being told.
Of course the Administration of Justice is a political act in the highest sense of that word. What Iglesias meant, of course, is that “Politics” – or partisan advantage taking – should be avoided and even John Ashcroft understood this. But when Memos are sent indicating that certain people had a “problem” when Carole Lam went after “Dusty” Foggo the #3 at CIA for corruption in the “Duke” Cunningham case we are no longer talking mere “Politics” but something called “Obstruction of Justice” – and that was count number Two in the Articles of Impeachment of Richard Nixon.
Obstruction of Justice? I didn’t know that there was a legal matter pending on the firing of the attorneys. This is a really big stretch to go from Democratic witch hunts over issues related to Presidential appointments to saying that a crime has been committed.
Celeste, is this site supposed to be about issues affecting L.A. or issues affecting the national Democratic Party? I hope that I can teach something to your students who read this, in either event.
Point one: Never believe the media. Make up your own minds.
Good question, Woody. The site is about social justice issues—and has an LA centric leaning. So the supreme court decision falls easily within those boundaries. I was just thinking before you posted that I need to get back to the criminal justice/education/immigration/racial justice issues. That, fascinating as the attorney thingy is, there are plenty of other people commenting on it—from both sides of the fence. I may put up one more addendum to the existing post, as it seems to clarify some of the issues you’ve brought up. But after that, back to our regularly scheduled programming: murder and mayhem (plus some other fabulous topics of interest)…..in Los Angeles and beyond.
Celeste far be it for me to suggest stories but an item on LA OBSERVED sure got my attention. Seems the WEEKLY under its new owners had a small problem with a story over the school board elections. The freelancer who wrote it mispelled several names and got the number of incuments wrong. Other than that he did a heckova job. The guy was picked by Jill Stewart to do the piece and the boys ruthe paper have axed their factchecking dept. Oh, and Jill used this guy at NEW TIMES where he railed against bilingual education – a hobby horse of his.
You know NEW TIMES (and Stewart) failed miserably here and to have those jerks from Phoenix take over an institution like the weekly sticks in my craw. I know I’ve stopped reading it and I suspect that I’m not alone. With the Tribune company lobotomizing the TIMES and this crap going on over there it is clear that LA is in for rough times when it comes to getting the news. Sure won’t be found on Channel 7!
BTW if you’re still stringing for them I’ll understand if you don’t want to comment. What a world!
From the bold heading of this story, I thought that it was going to be about Anna Nicole Smith.
HA!