Bullies, Real and Imagined by Kevin

The Bushies are whining that Fitzgerald is a “bully”:

The investigation has taken a toll on White House aides, many of whom now fear that the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, is intent on issuing indictments . . . “Fitzgerald’s office, although very professional, has been very aggressive in pursuing people,” the adviser said. “These guys are bullies, and they threaten you.”

A prosecutor that pursues his targets aggressively while maintaining a professional demeanor is not a bully. He or she is a public servant. A prosecutor who is a bully would act like this:

Just a few hours earlier this 51-year-old single mother had been indicted by Kenneth Starr. I fully expected to find someone broken by inquisitorial pressure. Her travails had already been recounted in the press, on talk shows and in Congress: investigation of her 8-year-old’s adoption, the prospect of facing down the nation’s most powerful prosecutor with no resources of her own. Yet the voice on the other end of the phone was neither shattered nor haunted. Angry, yes; and so protective of her son that she doubted he should ever even meet a reporter.
(snip)
The basic facts bear repeating. In August 1997, Newsweek reported Willey’s claim that President Clinton had groped her in the Oval Office. Reporter Michael Isikoff talked to Steele, who said Willey had told her about the incident at the time. But before Isikoff’s article ever appeared, Steele changed her story: Her friend Willey, she told Isikoff, had asked her to spread the story of harassment, but she admitted the story was a fabrication. Newsweek printed both versions. Eventually, Julie Steele — a registered Republican active in charitable work and social service — found herself interviewed by Ken Starr’s FBI agents and subpoenaed before two of his grand juries. Each time, she repeated her recantation of the initial story. Each time, the pressure increased: Starr called her brother, her former lawyer and her adult child. And Steele charged in the media — most notably on the Larry King show — that Starr’s staff even asked questions about the legality of her adoption of a Romanian infant, her son Adam, now 8.

See the difference?