From the AP:
Slapped even by GOP allies, the Bush administration is beating an abrupt retreat on eight federal prosecutors it fired and then publicly pilloried….The Justice Department is shifting from offense to accommodation.
“In hindsight, we should have provided the U.S. attorneys with specific reasons that led to their dismissal that would have helped to avoid the rampant misinformation and wild speculation that currently exits,” Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said Friday. “We will continue to work with Congress to reach an accommodation on providing additional information.”
It was a striking reversal for an administration noted for standing its ground even in the face of overwhelming opposition.
Gone were the department’s biting assertions that the prosecutors were a bunch of “disgruntled employees grandstanding before Congress.”
And the department no longer tried to shrug off the uproar as “an overblown personnel matter,” as Gonzales had written in an opinion piece published Thursday in USA Today.
Agency officials also ceased describing majority Democrats as lawmakers who would “would rather play politics” than deal with facts.