Although it is not clear what's happening there are a lot of moves being made by the White House on the Judiciary front that seem to signal that they are going on the defensive.  Why, you say?  Well first we had Harriet Miers resigning as White House Counsel and her replacement by Nixon and Reagan administration veteran, Fred Fielding, someone with a lot more experience managing congressional oversight and scandal. 

Next, and possibly the most serious change, is the removal of a number of prominent U.S. attorneys many of who were overseeing investigations of a number of top Republican lawmakers and their associates.  Worst of all those attorneys were replaced without Senate authorization with the White House choosing a little known provision in the USA Patriot Act to ram the changes through.  Needless to say, many of the new appointees are long on political loyalty to the President and short on legal or courtroom experience. 

To add to the mess, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, is suddenly on a rampage giving speeches about the evils of "judicial activism".    I could be wrong but trotting out well-worn stale political rhetoric about the judiciary as some sort of preemptive defense is just lame.  Better arguments could be made that Presidents should never pick their long time political patrons/personal lawyers as Attorney General.

Any of you lawyers, notice any other trends out there?