Who Will be Scooter This Time?

Kyle Sampson will not become the next Scooter Libbey. So Charles Schumer (D-NY) on CNN just now, still pursuing the third-rate burglary, overblown personnel matter, the dismissal of the seven prosecutors. That’s Kyle Sampson, the now-blowing-town former chief of staff of Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, who must be experiencing some abandonment issues as he sees the way his friends and colleagues have rigged the coverage in the press.

But I think Schumer is right: I think that the Libbey role has fallen to Harriet E. Meirs former White House counsel who came within a gnat’s crotchet of making it to the Supreme Court. “The idea for the firings originated at least two years ago,” reports the Washington Post this morning, “when then-White House counsel Harriet E. Miers suggested to Sampson in February 2005 that all prosecutors be dismissed and replaced.”

“Gonzales rejected that idea as impractical and disruptive, Justice officials said, but over the next 22 months Sampson orchestrated more limited dismissals.” The New York Times adds: “Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, also had rejected the idea of replacing all the prosecutors, [White House Spokesperson Dana] Perino said.” Whoo, good thing we had responsible public citizens like Rove and Gonzalez and Sampson on hand to protect us from an out-of-control banshee like Harriet. Harriet? Your lawyer on line one.