Paul Krugman of the New York Times says that the real story is not the eight US Attorneys who were fired but the the US Attorneys who stayed and may have succumbed to political pressure. Bigger scandal involves US attorneys still in office

In a column on "the growing scandal over the firing of federal prosecutors," New York Times columnist Paul Krugman argues that "it is becoming clear that the politicization of the Justice Department was a key component of the Bush administration's attempt to create a permanent Republican lock on power."

Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.