My old compadre, the grizzled and venerable, Nick Coleman, asks the question I thought somebody in town should have asked at least a month ago. Namely, was U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger’s abrupt departure 15 months ago in any way connected to the ever-burgeoning Rove-Bush-Gonzalez USA firings scandal?
Heffelfinger, a self-described moderate Republican, (remember those people?), says if he was targeted by Team Rove he has no awareness of it. Ok, fine. (If I was a moderate Republican attorney in good community standing and I had any basis for plausible denial, I’d say the same thing. There is no upside to getting dragged into this mess.) But as basic journalism goes with a story as big and nationwide as this US Attorneys thing shouldn’t someone at the Star Tribune have asked Heffelfinger the question before now … and published whatever he wanted to say? I’m not asking for much. Maybe 8″. Certainly nothing as long as the latest update on Sanjaya.
Coleman’s story plays nicely with Bob McNaney’s report on Heffelfinger’s successor’s rather over-the-top investiture a month ago. McNaney pushed the “misuse of taxpayer’s dollars” angle pretty hard. Maybe too hard. But there was an unmistakable air of pretension and grandiosity to the affair. Call it personal taste on the part of new USA Rachel Paulose, or call it no big deal, I am still left with questions — as Coleman asks — why Heffelfinger was not invited, what this “problem journalist” list that existed at some point in the investiture planning process was really all about, (I mean, come on, a “problem journalist” list? Who is running Paulose’s show, Erhlichman and Haldeman?), and finally, whether Paulose in any way owes her present position to the hyper-partisan connivery that has now managed to taint every USA in the country … who DIDN’T get fired.
But to get back to the top … does the Star Tribune mean to suggest that no one in the building thought to look seriously at the Heffelfinger departure until now?
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