Does This Surprise Anyone Who’s Been Paying Attention Over The Last Seven Years?

To borrow a catchphrase — sadly, no (emphases mine):

The only U.S. attorney fired by the administration in December who undeniably had performance issues was begrudingly added to the list at the last minute — and only then because of a federal judge’s threat that he would go to Congress with complaints about the prosecutor’s performance.

[…]

[Kevin] Ryan only was added to the list in early December, after a federal judge warned the Justice Department that she was “going to ask members of Congress to get her a copy of the blistering evaluations the department had done of Ryan earlier that year.” The emails strongly suggest that Ryan was fired in order to prevent that from happening.

Just let that sink in. In the only case where there was a strong case for firing, the DoJ had to be extorted to do it.

It was not always that way at the DoJ. Remember that, before he left in August of 2005, then-Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty generated his own list of U.S. attorneys to be fired. Only his list was completely different from the list finally generated by Alberto Gonzales’ deputy, Kyle Sampson — save one name: Kevin Ryan.

Why did the DoJ try to protect Ryan?  As the LA Times article TPM cites makes clear, it was because he was a total Bush zampolit, who put BushCo’s agenda over all else.

This has been a hallmark of everything BushCo touches, from who was picked to run the CPA in Iraq to hiring Michael Chertoff and Michael Brown to pretty much what they’ve done to every government agency. Knowing what you’re doing is a decided liability where the Bush Junta is concerned, and possessing a sense of ethics is a definite liability. Loyalty to BushCo’s agenda is the single biggest factor; all else is not even secondary.