Partisan Hackitude

I’ve said over and over that I mostly admire those whose convictions overrule their loyalties. Dan Froomkin, like him or not, was someone who took it to Obama with much the same vigor that he did Bush. Froomkin was just let go from the Post…

But this post isn’t about Froomkin, who I kinda like. Instead here is Greg Sargent in March of 2007:

Will former U.S. Attorney and current Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani ever weigh in on Attorney Purge?

Update: Romney declining to comment on Attorney scandal.

Late update: And John Edwards becomes first Dem candidate to demand that Gonzales step down.

And, sadly, here’s Greg Sargent today:

…Walpin, a Bush appointee, alleges he was axed for doing his job – in particular, probing a nonprofit run by a big Obama backer. The conspiracy-mongering has been in full swing, with Walpin even scoring an appearance with Glenn Beck. Senator Chuck Grassley and even Dem Claire McCaskill are turning their attention to the case.

In an interview with our reporter, Amanda Erickson, Walpin turned up the heat in a way that’s likely to earn plaudits on the right, demanding that Obama ‘do the right thing’ and admit he made a ‘mistake.’ He called for a hearing at which witnesses would ‘testify under oath as to what’s happening.’ He said the matter should be left to the ‘good judgment’ of Congress.

So Greg, it’d be useful for those of us who don’t put little party flags on our cars (like Laker flags) if you’d do an explainer on why that firing was a scandal ,and complaining about this firing is a partisan hatchet job.

10 thoughts on “Partisan Hackitude”

  1. Trying to read between the lines, the second Obama comment on the IG firing suggests that he showed up drunk (or similar). Of course, that may or may not be true, but it’s doubling down. If the IG is a drunk, I suspect he’ll be sorry about the mess soon enough. If not, more likely Obama will be sorry.

  2. This seems to be more of a rundown on bad media and partisan stamping, but I found this while having morning coffee, and thought I would post.

    Salon has a rundown on the events leading up to the firing, and how the white house should have “explained”:http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2009/06/19/walpin/ the firing

    Some of the language is a little too political for me, but here is the important part of the article:

    bq. It is true that Johnson and St. Hope have acknowledged that they must refund roughly half of the money that the group received from Washington. But it is also true that Walpin… went well beyond his official mandate last year by publicizing supposed “criminal” wrongdoing by Johnson in the days before the Sacramento mayoral election.

    bq. And it is true as well that Lawrence Brown, the United States attorney in Northern California who received Walpin’s findings, decided not to bring any criminal charges against Johnson and instead reached a settlement with him and St. Hope.

    bq. Just as salient as the accusations against Johnson, however, are those brought by Brown against Walpin. A Republican named as the acting U.S. attorney by Bush, Brown filed a sharply worded complaint against Walpin with the oversight office for the federal inspectors general that charged him with ethical violations in an overzealous assault on Johnson and St. Hope. The U.S. attorney said that Walpin had “overstepped his authority by electing to provide my office with selective information and withholding other potentially significant information at the expense of determining the truth” — in other words, Walpin had failed to provide substantive exculpatory facts to the U.S. attorney, while trying to push the government into opening a criminal probe of Johnson. During the election season in Sacramento, Brown noted that Walpin had sought publicity for his findings against Johnson in the local media before discussing them with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, “hindering our investigation and handling of this matter.”

  3. Andrew, from what I read it sounded like he was coming down with a cold or something and was a little worse for wear. That’s hardly a good reason to fire somebody…

    Before and since by all accounts he’s been doing a good job – perhaps a little too good.

  4. _”Trying to read between the lines, the second Obama comment on the IG firing suggests that he showed up drunk (or similar). Of course, that may or may not be true, but it’s doubling down.”_

    That’s one way to read it. Another way is that that was a post-facto justification invented to shut the man up.

    I do like Walpins retort, however. Something along the lines of- if having a bad day justifies losing your job, maybe Obama should be out for not knowing how many states there are (and don’t even start on Biden).

  5. Alchemist, the headline for the Salon article isn’t filling me with warm confidence…

    ‘An Obama “scandal” as phony as Whitewater

    The right finds a fake martyr in Gerland Walpin, a Bush holdover and right-wing ideologue fired by President Obama’

    I’ll read it and digest, however…

    Marc

  6. Yeah, I concur, the tone is over the top. However, the two paragraphs I linked too are the ‘meat’ of the story… everything else is filler.

  7. There’s a sort of “death by cliche” method of getting rid of people these days.

    Someone appears to lose their job for political reasons, under circumstances that would have required explanation back in the Bush days, or even Clinton days. The MSM ignores it completely, as do the liberal blogs, so it is reported only by conservative and libber bloggers. From there it gets picked up by FOX or Limbaugh.

    At which point the politically reliable folk cry out that the person in question is “the darling of the far right” or “poster child of the far right”, or – what the hell – “the darling poster child of the ultra-extreme religious right.” End of discussion.

    I expect to see this a lot.

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