As for merely unethical or scandalous, while there is nothing actually illegal about booting out a competent USA to make room for a patronage job for a Rove protege, there is plenty to not like about it if you're from Arkansas. There'd be nothing illegal after all if a prez. Hillary appointed nothing but Queer Studies graduate students from Berkeley to the Defense Science Board, but it would still probably be _scandalous_ in the sense of being a terribly bad decision that shows contempt for the actual requirements of the job. Are you saying, Tom, that you'd have no complaint if she did that, and would oppose Congressional hearings into the matter by an outraged GOP?

Longstanding tradition is that USA jobs are quite big deals locally, and candidates are appointed in consultation with the local senators and local party establishment. In the Arkansas case, they booted a popular and successful Republican USA in favor of a Rove lackey with no prior prosecutorial experience and no connection whatsover to the state of Arkansas, over the objections not only of the state's Dem. senators but the state GOP. Anything criminal or even unethical in a "ethics violation" sense, no, but that doesn't mean it isn't fair to take the Administration to the woodshed for making a bad decision.

The lying to Congress about it -- under oath, don't forget -- after the fact we'll put aside for the moment since it's fair to focus on the actual firing and whether that is a problem in and of itself.

I do look forward to you applying your standard of, "so long as it's not an indictable violation of a specific statute then there's nothing to complain about" when there is another Democrat in office.