Oh Miers!

In classic passive-voice buck-passing, Alberto Gonzales has now acknowledged that "mistakes were made" in canning eight Republican-appointed US attorneys whose primary dereliction of duty appears to have been not bringing enough trumped up political corruption cases against Democrats right before the 2006 election. (Never mind that under Bush, the 93 US attorneys have brought 10 political corruption cases against independents, 67 against Republicans, and 298 against Democrats.)

Meanwhile, the White House is also passing the buck, insisting that Bush approved but basically knew nothing about the firings.

There are all kinds of glorious hypocrisies and stupidities in play here. My favorite has to be the White House and Gonzales both trying to put the blame on Harriet Miers, former White House counsel.

Miers, everyone is saying, actually wanted to fire all 93 US attorneys, but Gonzales heroically said no because he thought it might be disruptive. (Ya think?) So, basically, Gonzales is trying to say that firing the 8 US attorneys (his call) wasn't really his fault because somebody (whose call it wasn't) wanted to fire even more than that.

And Bush's spokespeople are saying, "Well, you know, at least we didn't listen to crazy old Harriet Miers." Except that, less than two years ago, Bush thought so much of Harriet Miers's legal acumen and sound judgment that he nominated her to the Supreme Court. I suppose we can thank Katrina for making it impossible for Bush to nominate Michael Brown to head Homeland Security.