All roads lead to Rove

[rodeodance]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/03/15/rove_attorneys/index_np.html


All roads lead to Rove

The White House political director was clearly at the center of the partisan plot to fire U.S. attorneys, despite the administration's clumsy attempts to pretend otherwise.

By Sidney Blumenthal


Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

Karl Rove

The Bush administration's first instinct was to shield Karl Rove from scrutiny when Congress began inquiring about the unusual firings of eight U.S. attorneys. Among the replacements, the proposed new U.S. attorney for Arkansas happened to be one of Rove's most devoted underlings, his head of opposition research, Tim Griffin, who boasted during the 2000 presidential election about the effectiveness of the negative campaign against Al Gore: "We make the bullets!" Griffin also posted a sign in his department at Bush headquarters: "Rain hell on Al!" A letter written by the Department of Justice in late February informed Congress: "The department is not aware of Karl Rove playing any role in the decision to appoint Mr. Griffin." Despite this categorical disavowal, a sheaf of internal Justice Department e-mails released this week to Congress under subpoena revealed Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff, writing in mid-December 2006, "I know getting him appointed was important to Harriet, Karl, etc." Harriet, of course, was Harriet Miers, then the White House legal counsel.

The Justice Department's statement on Karl Rove was simply one part of its coverup. The department's three top officials -- Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty and William E. Moschella, principal associate deputy attorney general -- all testified before Congress under oath that the dismissed U.S. attorneys had been removed for "performance" reasons, not because they had been insufficiently partisan in their prosecution of Democrats or because they would be replaced by those who would be. Yet another Sampson e-mail, sent to Miers in March 2005, had ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys on the basis of being "good performers," those who "exhibited loyalty" to the administration, or "low performers," those who "chafed against Administration initiatives, etc."

[Patsy Stone]

1. There we go again

Trying to make Rove look bad. It's just part of the left-wing vendetta. :eyes:

[Demeter]

2. Well, It's A Lot Easier Than Trying To Make Rove Look Good!

[maddezmom]

3. happy to be #5

K&R

[CRH]

4. It can't surprise many, ...

that at the heart of political profiling and further defiling of the Justice Department, already and oxymoron to many, is Bush's very own hand picked 'Turd Blossom', in full wreaking bloom.

One wonders how much more obvious corruption it will take before the Washington political elite from both parties, will even consider putting impeachment back on the table. When the corruption is such that every cabinet position, every department, every policy foreign and domestic, is tainted by distortion of purpose, misappropriation, and scandal; and the sitting congress allows legitimacy through their very inaction in using the tool of impeachment as a protection from this very assault of unbridled power against the institutions of the people; one has to consider the whole as responsible for aiding and abetting consistent crimes against the people.

Why should any person contribute a single dollar in mandatory taxes, to the mis administration of the Constitution and rule of law, our country's fore-fathers left in our protection?

There are times when political malfeasance of both parties travels beyond the limits of outrage.

K/R

[cassiepriam]

5. Yes always, in every case. Now we know it is Cheney and Rove who run things.

[heatstreak]

6. Just pray we can actually get rid of this crook