Prosecutor-gate': Bush's Power Grab (ROBERT PARRY)

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Prosecutor-gate': Bush's Power Grab

By Robert Parry
March 14, 2007

In 2005, when the White House launched a plan to oust U.S. Attorneys who showed insufficient political loyalty, George W. Bush was hoping to solidify one-party Republican control of American political life, in part, through aggressive prosecution of Democrats for alleged “voter fraud.”

One part of Bush's power grab was to unleash attack-dog GOP prosecutors to rip into Democrats who had been trying to get more Americans to vote. But where Republicans claimed “voter fraud,” such as allowing some released felons to cast ballots, the Democrats saw Republican “voter suppression” aimed at frightening minority citizens away from the polls.

But the swing of a few hundred votes in some districts could mean giving the Democrats control of the House and Senate -- and subjecting the Bush administration to some serious oversight. So, by October 2006, when the White House now admits that Bush personally passed on Republican complaints to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales about the lack of urgency in addressing Democratic “voter fraud” cases, the GOP dream of near-permanent one-party governance was in grave jeopardy.

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Leaders on the Right boasted of Bush’s “transformational” role in bringing about this permanent realignment in American politics, giving conservatives control of all branches of the U.S. government as well as consolidating their strong bond with major corporations and expanding their influence within right-wing and mainstream news organizations.

By pulling these various levers of power, Republican victories in the future supposedly would be a foregone conclusion. The idea had traces of the “managed democracy” that President Vladimir Putin has built in Russia, with his opposition kept around to maintain the appearance of democracy but never within reach of real power.

As right-wing activist Grover Norquist explained after Election 2004, the way for the Democrats to fit in to Republican-run Washington was to accept their permanent lot as a marginalized minority party.

“Once the minority of House and Senate are comfortable in their minority status, they will have no problem socializing with the Republicans,” Norquist said in an interview with the Washington Post. “Any farmer will tell you that certain animals run around and are unpleasant, but when they’ve been fixed, then they are happy and sedate. They are contented and cheerful. They don’t go around peeing on the furniture and such.”

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http://www.consortiumnews.com/Print/2007/031407.html