Your White House Press Corpse.

First, let's see if we can figure out this week's White House talking point with respect to the recent attorney purge. Ah, I think I see it now:

"... you serve at the pleasure of the President. At any juncture, there can be a decision to put somebody else in the position ... people serve at the pleasure of the President ... people serve at the pleasure of the President ... the people serve at the pleasure of the President ... we all serve at the pleasure of the President ... the most important principle here is people do serve at the pleasure of the President ... certainly what happened is entirely appropriate in terms of removing people who serve at the pleasure of the President ... people serving at the pleasure of the President ... you serve at the pleasure of the President ..."

Which makes me wonder why the carbon-based life forms masquerading as actual journalists don't have the brain cells to ask what I think is the obvious question of White House Spokesdouchebag Tony Snow. Here, let me make a suggestion:

"Tony, you've said several times that these people serve at the "pleasure of the President" -- that seems to be your fundamental defense. But if that's the case, why don't you just say that and be done with it?

"If all of this is at the 'pleasure of the President,' why is there such controversy? Why did Alberto Gonzales have a conference call with all 93 U.S. attorneys during which he apologized? Why are you working so hard to deny that this was political, and that it's performance-based? Why is there so much finger-pointing and buck-passing going on?"

"If you're going to invariably fall back on this 'at the pleasure of the President' defense, why doesn't the President just come out and say that he can do whatever the hell he wants, and he just felt like firing those eight attorneys, and it's nobody else's business and if you don't like it, you can just bite him?"

"If hiring and firing is so totally at the pleasure of the President, why is this administration working so hard to justify it and defend it? Why not just say that it's your decision and you don't give a damn what anyone thinks?"

Yeah, that's the question I'd be asking.

LOGIC, OR THE LACK THEREOF: It occurs to me to point out the illogic of claiming, on the one hand, that all these attorneys serve "at the pleasure of the President" and that he therefore has the right to dismiss them arbitrarily, yet simultaneously claim that the White House had nothing to do with their firings and that it was "a purely managerial move that had originated within the Justice Department."

You can't really have it both ways, you know.