[A warm welcome to Red State's minuscule and demoralized readership. The teabags are over here. -- lambert]

Well, that should lay these rumors of discrimination to rest! And really, Abu G. was right on this "routine personnel matter," give him credit: After all, in corporate America, firing everybody is routine!

No, but seriously folks, why is that, no matter how hard I try, and I do try, I'm never cynical enough about the Bush administration? It's not the Mayberry Machiavellis, it's the Mayberry Sopranos! The mind reels. And the mind also reels that Pravda on the Potomac put this on A1, instead of burying it on A18:

The White House suggested two years ago that the Justice Department fire all 93 U.S. attorneys, a proposal that eventually resulted in the dismissals of eight prosecutors last year, according to e-mails and internal documents that the administration will provide to Congress today.

All 93? Oh. My. Fucking. Gawd. Where did they think they were going to find 93 replacements?

Hmmm, let me see... 50 states, 50 RNC chairs, plus 50 RNC assistants... Yeah, that's the ticket! And every one of those megachurches has a high-powered lawyer who knows how to keep his mouth shut to pay off the male hookers (Haggard 1:1) and deal with those pesky molestation eruptions....

Gonzales approved the idea of firing a smaller group of U.S. attorneys shortly after taking office in February 2005. The aide in charge of the dismissals -- his chief of staff, D. Kyle Sampson -- resigned yesterday, officials said, after acknowledging that he did not tell key Justice officials about the extent of his communications with the White House, leading them to provide incomplete information [lying] to Congress.

Nice of Sampson to fall on his sword like that. I'm sure he'll get "taken care of" in some winger think tank toot sweet. As soon as he gets out of jail, has his conversion to Christianity, does the book deal, etc.

So who, you may ask, originated this idea? To rephrase: What Good Soldier in the White House is going to give The Boy King plausible deniability on this one? Wait for it--