The uproar over the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys shows no signs of quieting down, with a House Judiciary Subcommittee now authorizing subpoenas to Bush aides (among them Karl Rove). As evidence mounts that these eight US Attorneys were fired to quell corruption investigations into Republican officials, and tilt the tables in favor of GOP election chances, Simon Rosenberg gives a compelling argument about why these eight were chosen.

TPM Muckraker has been all over this story from the beginning, wading through thousands of pages worth of Department of Justice documentation that indicates that the people who cooked up the firings should really have done a little more legwork with their rationale: they fired eight of the most competent U.S. Attorneys in the country on the basis of "performance." Performance issues, by the way, of which there is practically no record prior to their firings being suggested.

Using U.S. Attorney appointments to hush up public corruption investigations and influence elections is inexcusable - we shall soon see if testimony from the subpoenaed aides reveals that this was in fact the case. In any event, Congress has begun to realize that U.S. Attorneys need to be shielded from partisan political manuevering - continue to encourage their action on this issue by signing our petition today.