Hillary Should Be the First Witness Against Gonzales

The Democrats are raging against Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for firing 8 U.S. Attorneys allegedly due to politics. Even Hillary Clinton is calling for Gonzales' firing or resignation, but the Wall Street Journal points out some inconvenient truths about Hillary that are mysteriously absent from most of the mainstream reporting on this issue:

Congressional Democrats are in full cry over the news this week that the Administration's decision to fire eight U.S. Attorneys originated from--gasp--the White House. Senator Hillary Clinton joined the fun yesterday, blaming President Bush for "the politicization of our prosecutorial system." Oh, my.

As it happens, Mrs. Clinton is just the Senator to walk point on this issue of dismissing U.S. attorneys because she has direct personal experience. In any Congressional probe of the matter, we'd suggest she call herself as the first witness--and bring along Webster Hubbell as her chief counsel.

As everyone once knew but has tried to forget, Mr. Hubbell was a former partner of Mrs. Clinton at the Rose Law Firm in Little Rock who later went to jail for mail fraud and tax evasion. He was also Bill and Hillary Clinton's choice as Associate Attorney General in the Justice Department when Janet Reno, his nominal superior, simultaneously fired all 93 U.S. Attorneys in March 1993. Ms. Reno--or Mr. Hubbell--gave them 10 days to move out of their offices.

At the time, President Clinton presented the move as something perfectly ordinary: "All those people are routinely replaced," he told reporters, "and I have not done anything differently." In fact, the dismissals were unprecedented: Previous Presidents, including Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter, had both retained holdovers from the previous Administration and only replaced them gradually as their tenures expired. This allowed continuity of leadership within the U.S. Attorney offices during the transition.

That Hillary can make her proclamations against Gonzales with a straight face is no surprise - she's an accomplished hypocrite. That the press would ignore this bit of history is also no surprise - firings of political appointees are only scandals when Republicans do them.

The fact is, even if the President and the Attorney General had nothing but the most craven political reasons for firing the 8 U.S. Attorneys, it doesn't matter. They serve at the President's pleasure and he can replace them at any time for any reason. If the Senate insists on continuing this investigation, I can assure you that Republicans will be quick to bring the Hillary story to the forefront in such a manner that the press will not be able to ignore it.