I love Froomkin, but sometimes I wish he were more willing to take off the gloves, ya know? Sometimes he’s just too nice to these guys. Take this passage today:

President Bush yesterday acknowledged that he mentioned some Republican complaints about U.S. attorneys to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales last fall. And lo and behold, not long after that, a total of eight prosecutors had been purged from their jobs, for reasons the White House has yet to make clear.

Did Bush pull the trigger himself? Apparently not. He says he didn’t name names or demand that anybody be fired.

But did he have to?

In any organization, there is such a thing as its “corporate culture.” This White House’s corporate culture is that Bush gets what he wants. Sometimes, he doesn’t even have to say what that is; it’s understood.

And no one understands Bush better — or responds with more alacrity — than his longtime “enabler”, Alberto Gonzales.

Remind you of anything?

From a review in, of all places, The National Review, of Ian Kershaw’s Hitler: 1936-1945: Nemesis:

The Fuhrer state, as Kershaw shows, moved dynamically in a radical direction. Hitler himself was the source of all power because of his hold on the German Volk. There was no need to issue detailed orders. He merely set forth the goals in broad outline, as he had done in Mein Kampf and countless speeches. Here Kershaw introduces an expression I had not known before: “working toward the Fuhrer.” Individuals competed for Hitler’s favor by divining his wishes and getting things done. Whether building U-boats or bombers, producing artificial rubber, or rounding up and “relocating” Jews, the elites of the Reich “worked toward the Fuhrer.” This produced accelerating activity in the direction he was known to favor. Little was to be gained by arguing that the country had enough U-boats, for example. And there were no institutional checks: no Politburo, no highly organized and bureaucratic party.

Sound familiar? Especially that part about “no checks”?

History may not repeat. But it certainly does rhyme.

NOTE One of the consequences of the idea that government should be run “like a business” is that governments command and control structure should be corporate and top down. Of course, that’s how authoritarian regimes operate, too. It’s unfortunate that Froomkin lets the phrase “corporate culture” slip by; in a context where government is being discussed, that language reinforces an especially virulent authoritarian meme.