Scandal, Scandal, Scandal

RealClearPolitics.com posts a column by Kimberley Strassel maintaining that the ongoing U.S. attorney firings 'scandal' is about politics, not about any breach of the law. She begins with the following:

A president removes a U.S. attorney, and Congress demands to see privileged files related to the firing. The president refuses, noting that "these suspensions are my executive acts," and "based upon considerations addressed to me alone." The Senate has a meltdown, arguing it has oversight authority over the removal of administration officials and threatens to censure the attorney general.

If this sounds familiar, it shouldn't, since it's the story of a long-forgotten battle that President Grover Cleveland fought with Congress in 1885. One reason it is long-forgotten is because nothing happened. The Senate was steamed that Cleveland wouldn't cough up the docs, but it also recognized there were limits on its power. It never did hold any officials in contempt, never did take any judicial action. Instead, it confirmed Cleveland's new choice for the U.S. attorney position.

What a difference 122 years makes.

She goes on to point out that today's Congressional Democrats are having the same meltdown, but that they're not willing to admit they don't have constitutional power to do anything about it. Instead, they're spinning in the press and throwing mud for the purpose of smearing the president, not to prove a principle. Remember, the Justice Department has already provided 8,500 pages of documentation and given numerous officials' testimony to the investigation, and nothing was turned up. Instead of admitting there was no crime committed, today's Democrats instead demanded more.

Congress can issue a criminal citation based on its legislative power for pretty much anything it wants, but legally speaking the President could issue himself the same power from the executive branch. Without any evidence of an actual crime, it's essentially a stalemate.

Strassel also points out a key fact: the White House has offered to give Congress access to top officials, but without transcripts and not under oath. If the Democrats were truly interested in finding the truth about alleged crimes, they would jump at this chance. But, since their mission here is to make political hay, they haven't accepted the White House's offer. [Note: I've previously blogged about this maneuver here - why put someone under oath and on the stand, just to allow the Democrats to trip them up in insignificant details like what they did with Scooter Libby]

Strassel finishes with a coup-de-grace:

Congress was debating a criminal contempt citation against Attorney General Janet Reno. In several statements, none other than Mr. Leahy (who has recently been threatening to hold in contempt any Bush official who looks at him the wrong way) explained to his colleagues that it was useless to issue a citation because no U.S. attorney was "likely to pursue compliance" against a president who had asserted executive privilege. He said instead that the only real option open to Congress would be to hold its own "trial on the Senate floor," but warned that any such "spectacle" would "be an embarrassment to this institution."

What a difference eight years makes. There's now talk in the Senate of holding an "inherent" contempt proceeding--or precisely such a spectacle--in Mr. Leahy's very own judiciary committee.

So, why the scandal?

Rich Lowry also writes on RealClearPolitics.com, and provides the answer. The Democrats are scandal addicts.

He sums up by explaining the Democrats' latest tactic, saying of Republicans that "[t]hey can either come to Capitol Hill to testify so Democrats can try to build a perjury case against them, or they can refuse, in which case Democrats will cite them for criminal contempt of Congress. Either path leads inexorably to Democratic calls for a special counsel. Democrats love the prospect of another couple of Patrick Fitzgeralds, drumming Bush officials out of public life with onerous legal bills for their trouble."

The Democrats can't explain how the administration's firing of U.S. attorney's who serve "at the President's pleasure" constitutes a crime, but that's not stopping them from continuing the 'scandal' and investigations. Lowry predicts those actions are a grave political miscalculation without a Watergate-style smoking gun, or at least some plausible whiff of gunpowder, rightly pointing out that voters aren’t interested in scandal monomania.

He states that the only accomplishment of the current Democrat leadership is over 600 hearings, and concludes with "Those who can, legislate. Those who can’t, investigate."

How true! It's sad that they're too wrapped up in partisan accusations to actually do the work of the American people at this critical point in time. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: just remember who is doing this when the next election rolls around.

There's my two cents.