Two things:

1) if Bush is offering to let them speak but not under oath, how can the Supreme Court find for executive privilege? I mean, his deal allows them to talk, only exempting them from any force of law if they lie. Thus, he’s permitting access to ‘privileged communications’ already, negating any legal claim he may have had.

2) Remember what Cheney told Leahy? I don’t think Leahy will go soft here. He doesn’t have to worry about being re-elected unless he does, so the only one who might be able to undercut him is Reid. But again, why deal when you hold all the cards?

First, I think Blue got it right. Little Rock (no disrespect to Arkansas intendied) is not the center of politics in the US. With 87 seats to pick from, why drop a Rove mover & shaker to an obscure appointment. Unless Hillary was a target.

Second, one thing the White house is NOT offering up is INTERNAL memos on the replacements. You can bet there is a reason for that. If Congress can get those, then Meyers & ROve can ONLY hide behind the fifth amandment; false testimony, contradicted by their own memos, gets them a cell next to Libby.

Third, of the memos leaked so far, who is the source? There has been no denial of the authenicity fo the memos that identified the role of the WH in the selection. Who leaked?

Fourth, if the Subpeonas are served, and enforced, the crew CAN take the fifth. The counter to this is to offer them immunity from prosecution for any crimes that might have been committed, but NOT exempt them from prosecution for perjury if they fail to tell the truth under oath. Why let them off the hook? The truth about the politicization of Justice by the Prez, VP, and Gonzo is WAY more important than prosecuting Meyers & Rove.

Deleting the internal memos might be construed as obstruction of justice in and of itself regardless of content. Bushies in the WH might be getting nervous about WHO is going to jail, particularly if it’s inside knowledge that Scooter was hung out to spare the VP. (Who wants to be the one to push the ‘delete’ button?)

The courts might not be sympathetic to Bush & Co. The issue under investigation is the blatent politicization of the office of federal prosecutor throughout the country.If that corruption of JUSTICE (meaning fairness, not the department) is upheld for Republicans, it is also precident which stands for a Democratic president. (be careful what you wish for).

Even a Bush-leaning judge can see the implications of a ruling, in a political climate where Democrats might damn well control the White House in the near future. Who (outside of the White House) would dare support the precident being set? I expect the Federal Courts & Republicans in Congress to think about this and come down with a serious case of integrity.

It is a time-consuming, labor-intensive process to recruit, interview, background check and shepherd a team of prosecutors through Senate approval. What administration in its second term would consider replacing them wholesale and thus divert valuable resources from pursuing its agenda. Unless that is the agenda.

The appointment of Timothy Griffin, a Karl Rove protégée, to Little Rock raised my eyebrows. Griffin is a veteran of Team 2000, the GOP’s opposition research effort in 2000. The June 2004 Atlantic (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200406/green) detailed some of their efforts at discrediting Vice President Al Gore. The GOP brought Griffin back for dirty tricks in 2004 as Bush’s director of opposition research and deputy communications director.

Who better qualified (and strategically located in Little Rock) to reprise the right-wing’s muckraking “Arkansas Project” if a former first lady from Arkansas tops the Democratic ticket in 2008?

And why just Hillary? By replacing all (or at least key) U.S. attorneys around the country with loyal operatives like Griffin, Bush and the GOP could be positioned to make mid-2008 the summer of the Democrats’ discontent. Pre-election news of investigation after meritless investigation of Democratic officials and candidates could help eat away at Democratic efforts to retake the White House and help keep the Bushies out of the slammer.

As with the Arkansas Project and the Whitewater investigations during the Clinton years, there need not be any real fire to get the job done, only lots of smoke.

Lam was getting pressure, but not from DOJ. She apparently didn’t have enough staff, and was pissed that with half her staff on immigration, she was getting criticism from Congress (including Feinstein).

The firearms thing was Chiara in Mich. Her emails are pretty amusing, as she knows she can make a fuss and bargains for another job.

(Very difficult to make sense out of the unordered postings in vastly different styles on TPMuckraker.
This site looks more promising:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/3/20/17716/3612
)

Someplace else there’s the story of Lewis(?) (mis)using an internal doc from one Border Patrol office as evidence against her, but the Border Patrol won’t back him up.