The Crossed Pond

Quintessential Bush administration. A scandal or uproar breaks. Spend months languishing and trying to smother it. When that doesn’t work, wait for the negative press to finally start to taper off. Then, offer a solution as a way of atoning. Only, in the twist, have the solution be not a way to make sure that the contentious action or policies don’t happen again, but a way to codify them into law. Not to stop the illegal actions, but to make sure they’re never illegal again. Wiretapping. Katrina. Executive overreach. Habeas Corpus. And, naturally, the US Attorney scandals.

Alberto Gonzales, now that the US Attorney’s scandal wave finally seems to have broken, is proposing changes in the way that US Attorney performance is reviewed. The problem, it seems, isn’t the politicalization of that process, but the casual nature of that politicalization. The solution? Codify that politicalization into law. The Chicago Tribune has the story.

Gonzales described what he delicately calls “a more vigorous and a little bit more formal process” for annually evaluating prosecutors. What that means, as he explained it, is hauling in every U.S. attorney for a meeting to hear, among other things, politicians’ beefs against the prosecutor…

In testimony to Congress and comments at the National Press Club, Gonzales framed the meetings as a way of improving communications. But it also looks a lot like a way to remind recalcitrant U.S. attorneys what the home team expects.

That’s chutzpah.