The left is having it’s usual BDS response to the “mass resignations” of US Attorneys in recent weeks. At this count there have been eight (this one being the last) with “glowing performance records” but seemed to be getting the boot over “clashes with the evil Bush Administration”.

As the lastest boot is recounted in the Washington Post:

“An eighth U.S. attorney announced her resignation yesterday, the latest in a wave of forced departures of federal prosecutors who have clashed with the Justice Department over the death penalty and other issues.

Margaret Chiara, the 63-year-old U.S. attorney in Grand Rapids, Mich., told her staff that she was leaving her post after more than five years, officials said. Sources familiar with the case confirmed that she was among a larger group of prosecutors who were first asked to resign Dec. 7.

Chiara is the second female U.S. attorney to be dismissed. The other is Carol Lam of San Diego. Before the firings, 15 of 93 U.S. attorneys were women, department records show.

The firings have been criticized by lawmakers in both parties and have prompted proposals in Congress to restrict the ability of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to appoint interim prosecutors indefinitely.

Chiara declined to comment on her departure, which is effective March 16. She will be replaced on an interim basis by Russell C. Stoddard, who recently joined the Grand Rapids office, officials said.

U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell, the chief judge in Michigan’s Western District, said in an interview yesterday that Chiara has an excellent reputation in Grand Rapids.

“This is a very classy, distinguished, highly regarded public servant,” said Bell, who was appointed to the bench during the Reagan administration. “She’s one of the best United States attorneys we’ve had in this district, and all of my colleagues agree. . . . To have her suddenly disappear without warning catches us all flat-footed.”

Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty told senators earlier this month that all but one of the prosecutors were fired for “performance-related” reasons. McNulty said that former U.S. attorney Bud Cummins of Little Rock was removed so the job could be given to a former aide to presidential adviser Karl Rove.

Nearly all of the dismissed prosecutors had positive job reviews, but many had run into political trouble with Washington over immigration, capital punishment or other issues, according to prosecutors and others. At least four also were presiding over high-profile public corruption investigations when they were dismissed.”

First, US Prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the President, and as such there doesn’t have to be any reason to let them see the door - none. Just as in Florida - a “Right to Work” state, you can be fired “without cause” simply because the boss doesn’t like your face. You may not like it, you may want to look for the smoking gun, but the fact is that it IS just the way things have always been.

Andy McCarthy, himself a former US prosecutor wrote last month:

“Yes, the public, surely, is about as ‚Äúshocked, shocked‚Äù as Claude Raines‚Äôs Captain Renault, and one is left to wonder whether Mr. Nunez spent the 1990s living under a rock.

One of President Clinton’s very first official acts upon taking office in 1993 was to fire every United States attorney then serving — except one, Michael Chertoff, now Homeland Security secretary but then U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, who was kept on only because a powerful New Jersey Democrat, Sen. Bill Bradley, specifically requested his retention.

Were the attorneys Clinton fired guilty of misconduct or incompetence? No. As a class they were able (and, it goes without saying, well-connected). Did he shove them aside to thwart corruption investigations into his own party? No. It was just politics, plain and simple.

Patronage is the chief spoil of electoral war. For a dozen years, Republicans had been in control of the White House, and, therefore of the appointment of all U.S. attorneys. President Clinton, as was his right, wanted his party’s own people in. So he got rid of the Republican appointees and replaced them with, predominantly, Democrat appointees (or Republicans and Independents who were acceptable to Democrats).

We like to think that law enforcement is not political, and for the most part — the day-to-day part, the proceedings in hundreds of courtrooms throughout the country — that is true. But appointments are, and have always been political. Does it mean able people are relieved before their terms are up? Yes, but that is the way the game is played.

Now granted it’s a little unusual for such dismissals to take place during a second administration, but again, such is the prerogative of the President and the US Department of Justice. There is no “hatchet” being swung, and no conspiracy to unfold.