Topic: Media Research Center
In all of its attempts to equalize President Clinton's replacement of nearly all U.S. attorneys when he took office in 1993 with the Bush administration's firing of eight prosecutors, there is one thing the various tendrils of the Media Research Center have never addressed: the specific circumstances regarding the firing of the Bush prosecutors.
For instance, a March 15 NewsBusters post (and March 16 CyberAlert item) by Brent Baker includes a snippet of transcript from ABC in which it is asked whether there was "political motivation involved" in the firings of the attorneys and that "Democratic senators are saying tonight, the White House hasn't been forthcoming with how this whole plan began." That, of course, is the reason there is a controversy; as summarized here, one attorney was replaced specifically to install a former aide to Karl Rove, and there's evidence that administration officials fabricated evidence of "performance related" issues to remove others.
Yet, Baker obsesses over whether the mostly irrelevant issue of Clinton's actions regarding attorneys is mentioned.
The problem appears to be the MRC's failure to choose a properly analogous Clinton situation. Rather than the routine start-of-new-administration replacement of attorneys, a better comparison is to Clinton's replacement of employees at the White House travel office -- which Clinton had the power to do since they, like the attorneys, serve at the pleasure of the president, yet a stink was raised about it anyway.
