Did You Know - Attorney Probe

Some of the Bush administration shenanigans can be attributed to incompetence, for sure. But how much can be attributed to political partisanship and conscious criminal behavior? Here's a clip and a link to an interesting article from the New York Times a few days ago...

When a jury acquitted Carl J. Marlinga, a former county prosecutor from suburban Detroit, of bribery charges last year, his initial reaction was to write off the episode as a terrible mistake that at least had been corrected.

“Prosecutors can make mistakes for innocent reasons,” Mr. Marlinga
said. “I know that first hand.”

But as he looks back at the case, Mr. Marlinga, 60, who was charged while he was a Democratic candidate for Congress, no longer has such confidence in the integrity of the legal system.

“Was there some extra pressure on the United States attorney’s office, whether articulated or tacitly understood, by their superiors in Washington who would not look favorably upon the office if this case was not pursued?” he asked. “I have to wonder.”

That kind of second guessing has surfaced with increasing frequency in recent weeks in states including Alabama, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Since the dismissals of eight United States attorneys, local lawyers, politicians, editorial writers,
members of Congress and defendants are questioning what they say is a pattern of investigating Democrats. They point to inquiries that drag on for years but end with no charges, an acquittal or convictions for relatively modest infractions.