The argument is premised on a mistaken understanding of how the process works. When a president takes office, he or she nominates federal prosecutors at the beginning of the first term. Under normal circumstances, these U.S. Attorneys serve until the next president is sworn in.

In 1993, Clinton replaced H.W. Bush\ufffds prosecutors. In 2001, Bush replaced Clinton\ufffds prosecutors. None of this is remotely unusual. Indeed, it\ufffds how the process is designed.

The difference with the current scandal is overwhelming. Bush replaced eight specific prosecutors, apparently for purely political reasons. This is entirely unprecedented. For conservatives to argue, as many are now, that Clinton\ufffds routine replacements for H.W. Bush\ufffds USAs is any way similar is the height of intellectual dishonesty. They know better, but hope their audience is too uninformed to know the difference.

Clinton\ufffds former chief of staff John Podesta told ThinkProgress last week that the entire argument is \ufffdpure fiction.\ufffd

Mr. Rove\ufffds claims today that the Bush administration\ufffds purge of qualified and capable U.S. attorneys is \ufffdnormal and ordinary\ufffd is pure fiction. Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in \ufffd as we did in 1993 and the Bush administration did in 2001 \ufffd is not unusual. But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution. These U.S. attorneys received positive performance reviews from the Justice Department and were then given no reason for their firings.

We\ufffdre used to this White House distorting the facts to blame the Clinton administration for its failures. Apparently, it\ufffds also willing to distort the facts and invoke the Clinton administration to try to justify its bad behavior.

Josh Marshall added this morning:

First, we now know \ufffd or at least the White House is trying to tell us \ufffd that they considered firing all the US Attorneys at the beginning of Bush\ufffds second term. That would have been unprecedented but not an abuse of power in itself. The issue here is why these US Attorneys were fired and the fact that the White House intended to replace them with US Attorneys not confirmed by the senate. We now have abundant evidence that they were fired for not sufficiently politicizing their offices, for not indicting enough Democrats on bogus charges or for too aggressively going after Republicans. (Remember, Carol Lam is still the big story here.) We also now know that the top leadership of the Justice Department lied both to the public and to Congress about why the firing took place. As an added bonus we know the whole plan was hatched at the White House with the direct involvement of the president.

And Clinton? Every new president appoints new US Attorneys. That always happens. Always\ufffd. The whole thing is silly. But a lot of reporters on the news are already falling for it. The issue here is why these US Attorneys were fired \ufffd a) because they weren\ufffdt pursuing a GOP agenda of indicting Democrats, that\ufffds a miscarriage of justice, and b) because they lied to Congress about why it happened.

Note to Bush allies: if the \ufffdClinton did it\ufffd defense is the best you can do, this scandal must be truly horrifying.

Update: In case there was still any lingering doubt among conservatives on this point, in White House documents released today, there\ufffds an email to Harriet Miers from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales\ufffds chief of staff Kyle Sampson (who resigned yesterday), in which Sampsons admits that the Clinton administration never purged its U.S. attorneys in the middle of their terms, explicitly stating, \ufffdIn recent memory, during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, Presidents Reagan and Clinton did not seek to remove and replace U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely under the holdover provision.\ufffd

Second Update: No matter how often the \ufffdClinton did it\ufffd defense is debunked, the right just can\ufffdt seem to help itself.

Third Update: Now the right has altered the argument, shifting the emphasis to just one prosecutor Clinton fired. Conservatives got this one wrong, too.