Need a Plame/Gonzales primer for clueless friends. Please advise.

[Sapphocrat]

I have quite a few email correspondents who are utterly apathetic about politics -- but they're not stupid people; they're quite capable of being enlightened (and a few are ripe for registering to vote for the first time in 2008!), but, like far too many Americans, they simply are overwhelmed by detail, and stymied by the idea that what goes on in D.C. really does affect their day-to-day lives.

Me, I get it all, from the August 6 PDB to the Phoenix Memo to Project Bojinka to you-name-it -- I was screaming into the wilderness about Valerie Plame from day one, I dissected every Jessica Lynch report as it hit the wires, and I pegged the "mystery" illness killing U.S. soldiers as depleted uranium before I heard about it anywhere else... but that doesn't make me special; it only makes me a political junkie, incurably addicted since 1972.

The problem for me with explaining anything is that the whole * history is so convoluted, I don't know where to begin laying out what's going on right this second in D.C., from scratch, to someone who's been blissfully clueless -- but who, having caught a few intriguing but confusing news stories over the past few days -- now seems receptive (even ripe) for initiation. (Again, this is not a stupid person, but to give you an idea of what I'm up against, I recently compared the current Gonzales/fed-attorneys circus to Watergate, and had to stop cold to answer the question, "What's Watergate?")

Although I can break things down into non-political-junkie language quite easily, I am not the best person to clue in anyone whose main complaint with * is that "he looks mean." To begin at that starting point is utterly overwhelming to me.

DUers, can you help me find a good, simple primer -- perhaps a not-too-involved timeline -- that could be used to spoon-feed a receptive but completely clueless member of the Great Unwashed Apathetic Mass? I'm thinking along the lines of Bernard Weiner's classic PNAC Primer (which was my bible when I was first putting together the pieces of the whole horrible * puzzle) -- although I am doubtful anyone has written anything as short, sweet, and capable of inspiring the reader to start digging on his/her own.

I suppose I could write such a thing myself -- although, as those of you who know me from DU know, I am much too longwinded to do anything "short," and I would no doubt overwhelm the reader with far too many labyrinthine tangents. (Just look at the length and scope of this post.)

I've explained the most rudimentary basics to my friend: 1) A bunch of federal attorneys were fired for political reasons, and the Democratic-controlled Congress is going toe-to-toe with * trying to wrest the truth out of the * administration; and 2) meanwhile, somebody in the * admin (I had to explain who Rove is) outed a covert (I had to explain: "undercover") CIA agent, which is treason (I had to explain: "a betrayal of one's country... like Benedict Arnold..."), which compromised national security (I had to explain what a "front company" is).

Maybe that sounds like I'm off to a good start, but I think my friend (and certainly I) would be better served by a third party who can put it into the simplest terms possible.

Does anyone have any recommendations for an easily-digestible fact sheet?

[tiptoe]

1. Here's a fact sheet re Gonzales and the attorney-firing matter (...that you might eventually want :)

The Bush administration on the U.S. Attorneys Case: Fact vs. Fiction

[Justice Is Comin]

2. I can offer you my synopsis.

It should certainly be enough to make them think. .........http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=434674

[EST]

3. Wow! What a project.

Just after grunts and sign language, you might offer, "Republican bad, democrat not so bad."

In point of fact, I have been facing some of the same hurdles. In the case of one successful conversion, I started off with asking the person in question whether they considered themselves to be conservative or liberal. To her reply of "conservative, absolutely," I began with gentle questions concerning how she felt about people, their pain and their mistreatment by the powerful.

After obtaining the answers I knew were there, I got out the dictionary and read her the definitions of conservative and liberal. What a revelation!

Since then, she still does not want very much political news - it gives her headaches and nightmares - and she is standing up to and challenging the mouse trap minded people she works with and then joyously relaying the stories to me.
She asks me who to vote for and I tell her both who and why, then she follows through. Some people simply don't want or need the bloody details that you and I have to work with; they just need someone to trust not to mislead them and to tell them what to do.

[sandnsea]

4. Firing Prosecutors for Political Purposes

The first one uncovered being the Arkansas prosecutor, in order to be replaced with Rove aide, Tim Griffin. This has spread to Carol Lam of California being fired, who handled the Cunningham prosecution. Iglesias of New Mexico says he received telephone calls from Wilson and Domenici to speed up investigations of Democrats to benefit the 2006 election. Five other firings are also being investigated.

The White House says it's partisanship, which has come to be their standard response whenever they're GUILTY.

I believe in short and simple.