Didn’t the Democrats completely blast the Bush administration and Alberto Gonzalez for politicizing the U.S. Attorney position by replacing them with someone more loyal? Wasn’t the charge that the administration was trying to use the US Attorney for political advantage? I guess it isn’t politicizing if the person has no experience as a prosecutor but donated money to your campaign.
Politicizing Justice? Obama names DNC member Tim Purdon as a U.S. Attorney
Complete BS. The two are not at all comparable.
Obama names an attorney to fill a vacant North Dakota US attorney post and you object because he donated $12,000 (whoop de doo) to democrats over the years, despite the fact that he has tried numerous criminal and civil cases to jury verdict and appears to be a reasonably bright and competent lawyer, who was named in 2007 as a Great Plains, “SuperLawyer,” an honor shared by just 5% of North Dakota lawyers.
vogellaw.com/attorneys/attorney_purdon.php
On the other hand, the Bush administration fires 9 US attorneys half way through their pending employment contracts and replaces them with candidates perceived to be more loyal, because the dismissed attorneys are taking legal actions against replublicans who are violating laws; furthermore, it is discovered that the Bush administration was investigating 26 other US attorneys who are also perceived as unloyal to the administration and it is considering whether to also fire all of them and replace them.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_ … ontroversy
Night and day. Anyone with half a brain should be able to see that (unless, of course, one doesn’t want to see the truth because one is only interested in trying to sling political mud, where none actually exists).
[quote=“Mother Theresa”]Complete BS. The two are not at all comparable.
Obama names an attorney to fill a vacant North Dakota US attorney post and you object because he donated $12,000 (whoop de doo) to democrats over the years, despite the fact that he has tried numerous criminal and civil cases to jury verdict and appears to be a reasonably bright and competent lawyer, who was named in 2007 as a Great Plains, “SuperLawyer,” an honor shared by just 5% of North Dakota lawyers.
vogellaw.com/attorneys/attorney_purdon.php
[/quote]
The amount of the donation isn’t the main issue, because as you pointed out, its a rather small amount in the grand scheme of things. The issue is the guy has no prosecutorial experience, and while I may be wrong, that should be one of the more important criterion when selecting a U.S. Attorney.
I’m not saying that the Bush administration’s actions and this one are comparable. What I’m trying to express is that you can’t (rightly) rail against the Bush administration for politicizing the process and then turn around and make a political appointment. Timothy Purdon isn’t just an accomplished lawyer, end of story. He’s an accomplished lawyer who also served as Democratic National Committeeman for North Dakota. He’s an accomplished lawyer who is also a prominent fundraiser and donor. These are legitimate conflicts of interest when the acting DNC for North Dakota is appointed to the Attorney General position over the Assistant U.S. Attorney, especially when he has no prosecutorial experience.
Wrong. The guy has apparently tried multiple criminal and civil trials to a jury verdict. He DOES have relevant experience and, while I agree he doesn’t look like superstar, he seems to be perfectly bright, competent, well regarded and with relevant, appropriate experience. And, for god’s sake, we’re talking about North Dakota, not NY, CA, TX, FL, Il. I would imagine there are relatively few superstar lawyers in North Dakota compared to more populous states. So, he may have been as good or better than any other potential candidates. I’ve not seen any evidence to the contrary.
Therefore, the fact that he made minor contributions to democrats is trivial and inconsequential. There’s no evidence whatsoever that this was a political appointment, unlike the Bush/Gonzalez mess where it was abundantly clear people were being fired and replaced purely for political reasons.
We didn’t rail against Bush for making purely political attorney appointments. We railed against him for firing a group of attorneys and replacing them with ones who stood up to a checklist of political criteria.
Obama is now in a position to restore balance to a Bush-stacked pool of attorneys by filling vacancies with qualified attorneys as he sees fit.