How Very Soviet of Him

What, in the name of all that is sacred and holy, motivated Karl Rove to turn the Department of Justice into the enforcement arm of the Republican National Committee?

The answer is simple: He only cares about The Party. Principle and Country are obstructions to furthering his own petty political agenda. To his fevered, partisan brain, the Department of Justice was his to do with as he pleased. Screw you, screw me, screw the election process, screw the Constitution; and the hell with Justice being just. That sort of thing is for chumps and Democrats, and apparently Rove thinks the terms are synonymous. I can not wait for his come-uppance.

The wonderful Dan Froomkin has a terrific piece on the Washington Post website that pulls together information from different sources and paints a disturbing picture of the unprincipled, dishonorable and frankly un-American purely partisan political hack Rove.

Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein write in today's Washington Post: "Nearly half the U.S. attorneys slated for removal by the administration last year were targets of Republican complaints that they were lax on voter fraud, including efforts by presidential adviser Karl Rove to encourage more prosecutions of election-law violations, according to new documents and interviews. . .

"It has been clear for months that the administration's eagerness to launch voter-fraud prosecutions played a role in some of the firings, but recent testimony, documents and interviews show the issue was more central than previously known. The new details include the names of additional prosecutors who were targeted and other districts that were of concern, as well as previously unknown information about the White House's role. . . .

"New information also emerged showing the extent to which the White House encouraged investigations of election fraud within weeks of November balloting.

"Rove, in particular, was preoccupied with pressing [Attorney General Alberto] Gonzales and his aides about alleged voting problems in a handful of battleground states, according to testimony and documents.

Long-standing precedent was tossed aside and actual rules were broken as well. At least one woman was incarcerated in a federal prison because she worked for a Democratic governor that a US Attorney wanted to see unseated. (It did not happen.)

I live just a few blocks from ground zero in the attorney firing scandal. I sure as hell care that “some attorneys got fired.” Especially when one of those attorneys that replaced the fired prosecutors was put here to manipulate the electoral process in my own state.

Elections are sacred, and so is Justice. That’s just how it is supposed to be in America, damnit. Subvert that process, like Rove apparently has, and I can see an application of the gallows as appropriate.