Uh, that's not what it sounds like Sampson was saying

the nyt offers this up regarding kyle sampson in a story about alberto gonzales' meeting with u.s. attorneys in chicago on tuesday...

In his prepared testimony, Mr. Sampson, who resigned two weeks ago, said the prosecutors were fired not for political reasons, but because they failed to follow the president’s priorities. He is likely to be closely questioned about the extent of Mr. Gonzales’s involvement in planning the firings.

however, even in the nyt story that covers sampson's prepared statement for today's hearing, they neglected to include THIS direct quote...

"A U.S. attorney who is unsuccessful from a political perspective ... is unsuccessful," Sampson said.

now, what sampson seems to be saying is that the president's "priorities" ARE political and that a failure to follow those priorities is evidence of a performance failure on the attorney's part... i think he makes that clear when he says this...

“The distinction between ‘political’ and ‘performance related’ reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial,” Mr. Sampson plans to say, according to his statement.

it's pretty hard not to take the logical step and assume that the attorneys were fired for political reasons...

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