So what if the U.S. Justice Department fired eight U.S. attorneys in December. Clinton dumped them all. Every president does. Wasn’t Attorney General Alberto Gonzales right when he said that this was just “an overblown personnel matter”?

Yes, every president puts in his own team, including U.S. attorneys, upon taking office. But three key differences have stoked a controversy.

First, the Bush administration canned its own nominees. That’s unusual. Second, it said the terminations were performance-related – a claim contradicted by solid reviews. Third, the administration was granted an obscure passage in the Patriot Act that allows it to replace U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation.

Those three factors fed suspicions that the administration was putting political loyalty above impartial and professional federal prosecutions. The Justice Department all but conceded that the U.S. attorney from Arkansas was replaced because it needed to find a resume-building position for a former aide to Karl Rove, the president’s chief political adviser.

OK, but why should the average citizen care?

The main fear is that the executive branch and some members of Congress have been tilting the nation’s justice system for personal and partisan gain. Take, for instance, the case of John McKay, the sacked U.S. attorney from Western Washington.

He told Congress that he suspects his demise was connected to the state’s 2004 gubernatorial race. He said that shortly after the third recount, which gave the victory to Democrat Chris Gregoire, he got a call from Ed Cassidy, the chief of staff for U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, a Tri-Cities Republican, inquiring about possible voter fraud.

McKay said the call made him uncomfortable and he cut off Cassidy before he crossed ethical boundaries. He believes the absence of voter-fraud prosecutions cost him his job. It’s no secret that Republicans were upset with him. Interest groups and activists were, too.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation filed a formal complaint with Gonzales in 2005 over the lack of prosecutions. Tom McCabe of the Building Industry Association of Washington sent a scathing letter to Hastings urging him to tell President Bush to fire McKay over “illegalities and irregularities that occurred in our state’s 2004 election – the most tainted in U.S. history.”

But it was revealed in a recent Seattle Times article that McKay’s office was coordinating an investigation with the Justice Department. In addition, his staff closely monitored the proceedings of Chelan County Judge John Bridges, who ruled that voter fraud wasn’t proved.

As Secretary of State Sam Reed, a Republican, said at the time, “If they were going to allege fraud, they should have had proof.”

McKay also told Congress he believed the backlash cost him a federal judgeship, too. He said that during his interview at the White House, Harriet Miers, who was vetting candidates, asked him about his alleged mishandling of the governor’s case.

In New Mexico, a U.S. senator and congresswoman contacted their attorney general in a possible bid to speed up the indictment of some Democrats during a closely contested congressional race. The California attorney general who was fired who successfully prosecuted former Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham on bribery charges.

These are serious allegations, but they stand on circumstantial evidence. Congress is doing the right thing in trying to learn more. Even Gonzales has changed his tone and is dropping resistance to congressional questioning of Justice Department officials. The administration has also said it will not challenge proposed legislation that will send future midterm nominees to the Senate for confirmation.

There’s no downside to probing this matter. If administration supporters are right, the dark cloud will lift. If critics are right, then a corrupt system can be swept away.