New sheriff in town?

After four years of running around, basically, unsupervised, the Bush Cheney junta is now surprised that a mass firing of federal prosecutors raises a ruckus. Amazing.

The ouster of Mr. Bogden and seven other United States attorneys has set off a furor in Washington that took the Bush administration by surprise. Summoning five of the dismissed prosecutors for hearings on Tuesday, the newly empowered Congressional Democrats have charged that the mass firing is a political purge, intended to squelch corruption investigations or install less independent-minded successors.

The motivations for the dismissals appear more complicated, according to interviews with several of the prosecutors, Justice Department officials, lawmakers and others. Like Mr. Bogden, some believe they were forced out for replacements who could gild résumés; several prosecutors heard that favored candidates had been identified.

Other prosecutors may have been vulnerable because they had had run-ins with Washington, not over corruption cases against Republicans, but on less visible issues.

Paul Charlton in Arizona, for example, annoyed F.B.I. officials by pushing for confessions to be tape recorded, while John McKay in Seattle had championed a computerized law enforcement information-sharing system that Justice Department officials did not want. Carol C. Lam of San Diego, who successfully prosecuted former Representative Randy Cunningham, had drawn complaints that she was not sufficiently aggressive on immigration cases.

Justice Department officials deny that the dismissals were politically motivated or that the action resulted from White House pressure.

This is my favorite.

Mr. McKay, who is among the ousted prosecutors who have been summoned to testify before Congress, has said little about his dismissal. In interviews this week, officials in Seattle said he was a strong advocate for the expansion of law enforcement powers under the USA Patriot Act and a determined prosecutor who reorganized the office and allowed senior assistants to focus on complex cases.

Jeffrey C. Sullivan, who served as chief of criminal investigations under Mr. McKay and hopes to succeed him, said he was asked by the Justice Department to describe how the office had enacted “the attorney general’s priorities.” He said he responded that Mr. McKay created drug and gang task forces and pursued antiterrorism initiatives.

Mr. McKay had led efforts to start a computer system allowing law enforcement officials in the Seattle region to collect and analyze crime data. The program helped make him popular in local law enforcement circles, but his associates believed that Justice Department and F.B.I. officials in Washington objected, believing that such efforts should be undertaken on the national level.

I wonder how that"national" computer system is coming along.