Specter: Reinstate the Fired U.S. Attorneys

Sen. Arlen Specter is giving President Bush another reason to regret campaigning for him:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should consider reinstatement of eight fired U.S. attorneys if he cannot prove they were removed properly, the Republican leader of the Senate Judiciary Committee said on Sunday.

"I think he ought to consider it," Sen. Arlen Specter said on ABC-TV's "This Week" program....

Specter said he raised the idea of reinstatement during a conversation with Gonzales.

"At a minimum, he ought to have a case by analysis and either justify the reasons for replacing them or concede he was wrong," said Specter.

"If he was wrong, replacement, reinstatement would not be a bad idea if it could be done administratively."

I don't know why Specter and his Dem allies find it so difficult to understand that it simply doesn't matter why the attorneys were fired. Whether political, performance based, or based on how they look in a business suit, the president can fire them at any time for any reason. The Senate has no right to make any demands for reinstatement or for the president to provide any specific reason for the firings. If the Treasury Department had not handled this so badly, none of these conversations would be going on.