Shooting the messenger

The ongoing saga of the fired US Attorneys just keeps getting weirder. "The Justice Department official who told seven United States attorneys in December that they were being dismissed said Monday that he was resigning." Michael A. Battle, director of the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, said his departure was unrelated to the dismissals, and added that he had been planning to leave the agency since last June. However, doesn't it seem just a bit odd that such a long planned departure is being so suddenly consummated?

In related developments, we now have confirmation on what most of us suspected. It was Pete Domenici and Heather A. Wilson who called fired US Atty. Iglesias about speeding up Democratic indictments pre-election in New Mexico. They of course, claim the inquiries were just expressing innocent interest and no pressure was put on Iglesias to deliver the indictments in haste. Who wouldn't believe that?

Then there's this little item.

A high-ranking Justice Department official told one of the U.S. attorneys fired by the Bush administration that if any of them continued to criticize the administration for their ousters, previously undisclosed details about the reasons they were fired might be released, two of the ousted prosecutors told McClatchy Newspapers.

Justice denies the conversation took place, while the receivers of the calls are unsurprisingly afraid to speak on record. One can't fail to note however, this conversation allegedly didn't take place just as the Congress is issuing subpoenas for the ousted Attorneys testimony at hearings to be held this week about the whole bizarre affair.

So why has the White House allowed what should have been a routine administrative shakeup, balloon into such a complicated cover-up? Perhaps it's just to keep the Congress occupied and keep the public focus off the dismal results of the "new strategy" in Iraq but given the administration's track record, I have to wonder what greater malfeasance hides behind the smokescreen of what is beginning to feel very much like a kerfluffle purposefully manufactured as a distraction.