by Christine Stansell

Not enough has been said about the dream of Kyle Sampson, Cub Attorney, to be U.S. attorney for Utah. Sampson graduated from the University of Chicago Law School in 1996. After a brief stint at a white-shoe law firm, he joined the right-wing stampede to Bush's Washington and landed a White House job via a friendship with Liz Cheney. By my calculations he was a little over 30 when he started axing career attorneys. But that wasn't enough for Sampson. After firing so many grownups, he thought he could be a grownup, too. And why not? He had no experience as a litigator; no experience as a prosecutor; no real experience in the Justice Department except as a political op, hatchet man, and general gofer. But Sampson took his cues from Republican Assertiveness Training and put himself forward for the U.S. attorney's position in Utah. He was blocked by the fact that Orrin Hatch owed the job to a guy even higher up on the payback list, Brett Tolman. Tolman was counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee when the Patriot Act came up for reauthorization. It was Tolman who slipped in the provision that allowed U.S. attorneys to be appointed without prior Senate confirmation--possibly (probably?) acting for the Justice Department. To my knowledge The Daily Kos features the only report on the connection, concluding that "Brett's career may hit a bump if he is the mole in a much larger conspiracy to subvert the Department of Justice." In any decent administration, Sampson's hopes would have been ridiculous. But no reason to hold back, not when Michael Chertoff heads Homeland Security, Brownie headed Disaster Relief, and twenty-something kids from rich Republican families ran the Baghdad stock exchange. And Tolman's victory must have seemed not defeat but inspiration for a twerp like Sampson. No reason to slow down on the dirty tricks; just stand in line and wait your turn.