Akkam’s Razor

Conservative pundit, columnist, and Bush #41 veteran Michael Smerconish’s Sunday Inquirer piece advocates for Tom Ridge as McCain’s Choice for Vice President.

Arlen "Magic Bullet" Specter announced yesterday that he was seeking reelection in 2010 for his sixth-term in the US Senate.  You might be asking yourself, "Why so early?"

It seems that Arlen is throwing up a trial balloon to see what the future holds for him.  Despite being a Dirty F'ing Liberal, I voted for him in 2004, doing the political calculus that his seat on the Judiciary Committee would keep him from confirming a fundamental zealot, and as such he deserved my vote more than Jim Hoeffel.  As a result, we got John Roberts and Samuel Alito on the Supreme Court.

The most recent outrage is over "AttorneyGate".  Specter is all over this one too.

From Attytood:

Other the weekend, the good folks over at Talking Points Memo steered up to this report out of Pittsburgh, asking some hard but fair questions about the U.S. Attorney there, Mary Beth Buchanan, and her aggressive prosecutions of local Democrats.

Wonder if anyone is asking the same questions here in Philly. It's not like the U.S. Attorney here is the former campaign manager for Rick Santorum or Arlen Specter or anything…

Oh wait, he is. 

Couldn't possibly be the same Pat Meehan, could it? (From the Google cache of InsiderPA):

Pat Meehan: The U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District still has to resolve his office’s long investigation into state Sen. Vince Fumo, the South Philadelphia Democratic powerbroker, and his name is mud in Philadelphia for bugging Mayor John Street’s office and still not coming up with an indictment of Street.

But he, along with Corbett, has an internal party charisma, and a fan club within the GOP, who are very strongly for him. He was campaign manager for Arlen Specter in his tough 1992 general election against Democrat Lynn Yeakel and eastern campaign manager for Rick Santorum in 1994. Not too many were in the inner circle of both of the state’s top Republicans 12 years ago. Meehan was. Later, despite a lack of criminal law experience, was elected district attorney of Delaware County with the backing of the local GOP.

Hmm… Wonder what Thomas Judge. Sr. and Charlie Sexton, Delco two GOP strongmen, had to do with that appointment?

This must be a big deal, as I'm seeing some conservative attacks on Josh Marshall's TPM and TPMMuckraker, who have been the pitbulls on this story.

The conservative blogosphere is deep in the 4th Stage of Republican Grief - Evoke Clinton (either one), in that Clinton fired all the US Attorneys at the start of his term as well.   This is true, and customary.

A few distinctions - while it is true that US Attorneys serve "at the pleasure of the President", and may be fired at any time, it is the manner, method, and machination through which this occurred that is troubling.