Rudy: No comment on US Attorney Purge.

A rundown of the administration’s false statements to Congress — chief among them, the claim that Karl Rove had “no role” in getting his former aide appointed.

I’m not sure if it’s more a matter of entertainment or just grim confirmation, but it is worth cataloging all the Republicans who are now willing to come forward and spin out arguments about how federal prosecutors always pursue political investigations and are little more than cat’s paws for the party apparatus of the president who appointed them. Rule of law. Rule of law. Rule of law. I’ve said it a number of times in recent months: the rule of law and creeping authoritarianism has to be at the center of any sensible politics today. The degradation is so great and the bar has fallen so low.

White House Counselor Dan Bartlett: US Attorney firings “proper” and “appropriate”.

Not that there was any doubt at this point, but it’s nice to get a straightforward confirmation.

Email shows Rove’s deputy working with the Justice Department to get Rove’s old aide installed as a federal prosecutor.

Now it’s Pat Buchanan saying nothing’s wrong with the purge. The president hears about crimes going on and asks the AG to deal with it, he says. I think the wrongdoing here is pretty clear. But let’s not jump over the key point. The alleged ‘voter fraud’ claims were bogus. It’s the president goading the AG to send people to prison on the basis of RNC press releases and talk radio rants.

Washington Post endorses Congressional oversight — provided it has no real consequences for Bush or Iraq War.

FYI, Josh will be on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight at 8.

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Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY): “the attorney general should resign.”

Specter on the key issue (from the Times) …

Mr. Specter, in a speech on the Senate floor, referred to another of the dismissed attorneys, Carol C. Lam, who prosecuted Randy Cunningham, the former Republican congressman now serving an eight-year sentence in a corruption case.

Mr. Specter raised the question of whether Ms. Lam had been dismissed because she was “about to investigate other people who were politically powerful,” and he questioned the Justice Department’s initial explanation that those who had lost their jobs had received poor performance evaluations.

“Well,” he said, “I think we may need to do more by way of inquiry to examine what her performance ratings were to see if there was a basis for her being asked to resign.”

Everything else pales in comparison.