the independence of federal prosecutors is important. in other countries, it's common for prosecutors to give members of the ruling party a pass and to go after members of the opposition. that undermines democracy (imprisoning the opposition makes it harder for the government to be overturned at the ballot box) and encourages corruption (giving ruling officials a pass breeds officials who have no fear of prosecution). on top of that, politically tainted prosecutors undermines the credibility of the criminal justice system.
even though the u.s. attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, we have a tradition for prosecutorial independence in this country. as a matter of course, new presidents would replace old u.s. attorneys when they came into office (u.s. attorneys' 4 year term corresponds to the presidential term so whenever there is a new president their term is up), but it has been extremely rare for presidents to let u.s. attorneys go mid-term. in the quarter century before the bush administration, there have been only eight instances (pdf) of mid-term dismissals. as conservative blogger captain ed notes there is no modern precedent for what the bush administration has done. it has already fired eight u.s. atttorneys. and the administration's emails demonstrate that, unlike the performance-related terminations of prior administration, these were for simple partisan reasons. the prosecutors were targetted for either prosecuting republicans or for not bowing to political pressure to prosecute democrats.
the administration's actions to politicize the criminal justice system is dangerous. i don't want to live in a third-world country, where prosecutions are part and parcel of the ruling party's electoral strategy and corruption is rampant. even though purging the prosecutors and changing the law to give less accountability for the replacements was legal, that doesn't make it a good idea, or any less dangerous.
