Well said

This is from the NYTimes, though it's quoting the Washington Post (I was just too lazy to go to the source myself).

clipped from opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

The Reno precedent is a red herring, not a useful comparison. The summary way she announced the move was, indeed, unusual if not unprecedented. But a turnover in the top prosecutorial jobs with a new administration taking power – especially one of a different party – was not. As we wrote at the time, “These are political appointees who owed their jobs to the last administration and have expected to be replaced ever since last November’s election. It would likely have happened earlier had the Clinton administration not made such an adventure out of the appointment of an attorney general.” And so President George W. Bush, properly and unsurprisingly, replaced all but a few U.S. attorneys during his first year in office. Indeed, while it would undoubtedly have been disruptive and unwise, it would not have been illegal or unethical for the president to follow the suggestion of his then-White House counsel, Harriet E. Miers, to replace all the prosecutors again in his second term.

But this is the kind of thing that drives me NUTS. I barked at Abby last night about this when she said that she thought what Gonzales did was bad, but nothing really out of the ordinary.

First of all...there's that. As one example, when I got all bent out of shape about the fact that Bush's administration was making fake newscasts to promote NCLB and the Iraq War, it was pointed out that Clinton did the same thing. Same with the signing statements that Bush tacks onto every bill he signs, more or less. There's two points to make about this -- one, of course, is that two wrongs don't make a right. The second is that Bush has exceeded Clinton's reach in every regard.

And that's a real problem, because if we accept a certain level of behavior, then when the line moves slightly we don't notice it. Until it's so egregious that we either no longer think of it as being wrong, or the damage is massive.

But two...what Gonzales did is NOT like what Clinton, or Bush 41, or ANY other Attorney General has done. He fired eight prosecutors solely for political reasons - either because they were investigating Republicans, or not investigating Democrats with the zeal the White House wanted.

I'm not a lawyer, but this sounds suspiciously like obstruction of justice. From the nations top lawmaker.