It's becoming painfully obvious that for U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, whose office brought down U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, it wasn't just her record of prosecutions that led to her ouster but more whom she was prosecuting, and from which political party.

Lam's lack of loyalty to the White House agenda, more than her record for prosecuting border-related and gun-related crimes, has to be considered as a major factor given that her prosecution record was rather impressive even beyond her nailing of the worst political crook in U.S. history.

Memos that seem to the casual observer to warn of Lam's unwillingness to let the Cunningham bribery case drop with only Cunningham and a few minor co-conspirators facing the music, appear to amount to administration insiders waving red flags that she was getting too close to unearthing more embarrassing facts for the Republican Party and possibly the White House. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein claims six of eight prosecutors fired last year were following similar public corruption cases, many involving Republicans, so Lam's firing would appear to follow a pattern.

If indeed she and other prosecutors were fired to thwart investigations into criminal conduct by elected officials of any party, someone high up should pay a heavy price for that miscarriage of justice. And it shouldn't be yet another staffer or lower-level speed bump thrown under the bus as has been the administration's policy with poor stooges like Mike Brown and Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Even after Attorney General Alberto Gonzales takes one for the team, as likely will be the case, Congress should continue to press for details on why this was allowed to happen.