The more we know about how the Bush administration conducts itself, the harder it is to believe the 84-count federal indictment against Cyril Wecht, which alleges that he mixed personal and county expenses, overbilled private clients and trading unclaimed cadavers for university office space.

Dr. Wecht, of course, is the former Allegheny County coroner, the famous consultant and commentator on celebrity murders, and for many years the most flamboyantly loquacious, brilliant, egotistical and thin-skinned public official in the region.

More to the point, he was, until his indictment, one of the county's most prominent Democratic officeholders.

An ambitious and enthusiastic Bush partisan like U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan might well consider Dr. Wecht a plum target, good for many brownie points at the White House. Indeed, that is exactly the sort of thing this Justice Department requires from prosecutors -- just ask the nine who were summarily dismissed for failing to pursue Democratic politicians and "voter fraud" with sufficient zeal.

This White House has been seven times more likely to go after local Democratic officials than Republicans, according to a study by Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors emeriti from the University of Minnesota. No shock, then, that Ms. Buchanan hasn't indicted a single GOP officeholder since taking the reins in 2001 while indicting or investigating at least five prominent Democrats.

Contrast her record with that of former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh. When he was U.S. attorney here, partisan considerations didn't stop him from prosecuting a fellow Republican, District Attorney Robert Duggan. It seems fitting that Mr. Thornburgh is now a member of Dr. Wecht's defense team.

This week, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee asked to see documents related to the pursuit of Dr. Wecht and two other high-profile Democratic officials. In a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales -- a man who professes less knowledge of his department's workings than one would expect from the cleaning staff -- Chairman John Conyers said that finding out the truth about political profiling at the Justice Department was necessary to restore public faith in our legal system.

None of this means Dr. Wecht is necessarily innocent of all the charges (he did beat similar theft-of-service allegations in 1981, giving the current situation a deja vu quality.) But Bush-league politics certainly helps explain the overreaching nature of the indictment, which reads in some places like a laundry list of petty offenses on par with taking office supplies home for personal use. Stealing pencils is bad and should be punished, but does it really require the full force of the federal government?

It's true that prosecutors often throw multiple charges against the wall, not expecting them all to stick. Still, Ms. Buchanan has tipped her hand in this case several times. She labeled Dr. Wecht a "flight risk" who might flee to Israel (if he were Roman Catholic, would she have feared his escape to Italy?). She also reportedly wanted to march him through a public "perp walk," and she pushed for a trial to take place one month before the 2006 election.

Suspecting her motives might seem paranoid in a vacuum, but this is just one small piece of a big picture in which only the purest Bush loyalists seem able to hang onto their jobs. Anyone who doesn't carry water for the president's ideological agenda is marginalized, vilified or shown the door; politics trumps fact, science, fairness and the public good every time.

This has been driven home repeatedly in the departments of state, defense, energy and justice, the CIA, EPA, FDA and more. Recent damning testimony from Dr. Richard H. Carmona, President Bush's surgeon general from 2000 to 2004, only emphasized the point.

The doctor told Congress he was ordered to keep quiet on stem cells, emergency contraception and sex education. The Bushies tried to drag down his report on the dangers of second-hand smoke. They didn't even want him attending the Special Olympics because of the games' association with the Kennedys.

But the most revealing testimony came straight out of the playbook for fascist dictators: Dr. Carmona was ordered to insert President Bush's name three times on every page of every speech he delivered.

It sounds like a scene from Woody Allen's "Bananas," but less funny. Perhaps Karl Rove also considered making everyone wear their underwear on the outside.

I confess a professional soft spot for Dr. Wecht. His rulings, feuds and polysyllabic speechifying were always good news copy, and his bombastic letters in response to perceived slights were legendary. You weren't a real journalist in this town until you got one of his flamers in the mail -- or a complimentary note, for that matter -- and without him in the medical examiner's office the local scene seems kind of pale.

Still, I would not defend him on that basis, any more than I would convict him for once likening Post-Gazette reporters to dung beetles. But under this president, no nefarious prosecutorial motives can be discounted and no denials of same can be trusted.

The jury has yet to convene on Dr. Wecht, but the verdict on the Bush administration is loud and clear: 100 percent political.