Read Rove's lips
In April, 2006, while the Justice Department and the White House were planning the firings of the US Attorneys, Karl Rove (photo) gave a speech in Washington at the Republican National Lawyers Association convention. He ticked off 11 states that he said could be pivotal in the 2008 elections. Bush has appointed new U.S. attorneys in nine of them since 2005: Florida, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Arkansas, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico. U.S. attorneys in the latter four were among those fired. As reported in the March 23, 2007 article, New U.S. attorneys seem to have partisan records, Rove told the lawyers at the convention, “A lot in American politics is up for grabs."
Yes, a lot in American politics is up grabs. Imagine how much more we could learn about Bush and his cronies if both Congress and the Executive Branch ended up in the Democrats’ hands! And the next appointment to the Supreme Court is made by a Democratic President.
Based on Rove’s track record and by reading his lips, I’ve decided that he is going to do everything he can to affect the outcome of the 2008 election.
Let’s just look at what Rove has done in Alabama, then project that onto the nine states where new U.S. attorneys have been appointed since 2005.
Yesterday I posted Where is the outrage? about the former governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, who this past week headed off to prison for seven years and four months for doing something that happens every single day in the American political environment.
Who gave Siegelman his send-off? According to Scott Horton, in his June 24 post, “…Dana Jill Simpson, a Republican lawyer who previously worked on a campaign against Siegelman, decided to blow the whistle. Her affidavit [a must-read] described William Canary, a legendary figure in the Alabama GOP, bragging that “his girls” would take care of Siegelman. Canary’s wife is Leura Canary, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama. Alice Martin, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama is a close confidante of Canary’s. He referred repeatedly to “Karl,” assuring that “Karl” had worked things out with the Justice Department in Washington to assure a criminal investigation and prosecution of Siegelman. Canary is a close friend of Karl Rove, and I have documented their long relationship in another post.”
Sidebar: According to Horton, After Simpson’s intention to speak became known, her house was burned to the ground, and her car was driven off the road and totaled.
That Rove will go to any lengths to assure that Republicans win is described in Joshua Green’s 2004 Atlantic Monthly article, Karl Rove in a Corner: “…[N]o other example of Rove's extreme tactics that I encountered quite compares to what occurred during another 1994 judicial campaign in Alabama. In that year Harold See first ran for the supreme court, becoming the rare Rove client to lose a close race. His opponent, Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice…was no stranger to hardball politics….This August, I had lunch with Kennedy near his office in Montgomery….When his term on the court ended, he chose not to run for re-election. I later learned another reason why. Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children….At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove's signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems unassailable. Kennedy was no exception.
“Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children….some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile….what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take."
(photo: BendingLeft.blogspot.com)
Yes, a lot in American politics is up grabs. Imagine how much more we could learn about Bush and his cronies if both Congress and the Executive Branch ended up in the Democrats’ hands! And the next appointment to the Supreme Court is made by a Democratic President.
Based on Rove’s track record and by reading his lips, I’ve decided that he is going to do everything he can to affect the outcome of the 2008 election.
Let’s just look at what Rove has done in Alabama, then project that onto the nine states where new U.S. attorneys have been appointed since 2005.
Yesterday I posted Where is the outrage? about the former governor of Alabama, Don Siegelman, who this past week headed off to prison for seven years and four months for doing something that happens every single day in the American political environment.
Who gave Siegelman his send-off? According to Scott Horton, in his June 24 post, “…Dana Jill Simpson, a Republican lawyer who previously worked on a campaign against Siegelman, decided to blow the whistle. Her affidavit [a must-read] described William Canary, a legendary figure in the Alabama GOP, bragging that “his girls” would take care of Siegelman. Canary’s wife is Leura Canary, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama. Alice Martin, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Alabama is a close confidante of Canary’s. He referred repeatedly to “Karl,” assuring that “Karl” had worked things out with the Justice Department in Washington to assure a criminal investigation and prosecution of Siegelman. Canary is a close friend of Karl Rove, and I have documented their long relationship in another post.”
Sidebar: According to Horton, After Simpson’s intention to speak became known, her house was burned to the ground, and her car was driven off the road and totaled.
That Rove will go to any lengths to assure that Republicans win is described in Joshua Green’s 2004 Atlantic Monthly article, Karl Rove in a Corner: “…[N]o other example of Rove's extreme tactics that I encountered quite compares to what occurred during another 1994 judicial campaign in Alabama. In that year Harold See first ran for the supreme court, becoming the rare Rove client to lose a close race. His opponent, Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice…was no stranger to hardball politics….This August, I had lunch with Kennedy near his office in Montgomery….When his term on the court ended, he chose not to run for re-election. I later learned another reason why. Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children….At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove's signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems unassailable. Kennedy was no exception.
“Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children….some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile….what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take."
(photo: BendingLeft.blogspot.com)
3 comments:
Hard to believe men in high office could stoop so low. alt
This morning the Press Democrat carried a story originally published in the Washington Post about Bush trying to figure out where his administration had gone wrong and what he could do to salvage it.
Salvage it, he likely cannot do, but acknowledge his mistakes, yes. Two of those mistakes are allowing Dick Cheney to appoint himself as vice president and allowing Rove to stay in the White House. He should ask Cheney to resign and he should fire Rove. I'll bet we'd be out of Iraq in a matter of weeks with Cheney gone, and the Justice Department would right itself with Rove gone.
Janie
Janie,
Things seem dangerously tilted out of whack, to wit, Greenwald's post this morning about the NYT lapping up the military's version of Iran's involvement in the war in Iraq.
And the most vociferous supporter of attacking Iran, Michael Ledeen, apparently is still very influential with this administration.
I like your plan of action, but Bush is very, very unlikely to admit he made a mistake, much less fire the two people who are propping him up.
I'm still waiting for the majority of people in this country to become ouraged, which isn't realistic, either.
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