All roads lead to Rove

McLatchy is reporting that a confluence of factors are all pointing to the Bush administration improperly using the law enforcement capacity of the Department of Justice to influence electoral politics.

And of course, this, like all roads, leads to Rove.

Since 2005, McClatchy Newspapers has found, Bush has appointed at least three U.S. attorneys who had worked in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division when it was rolling back long-standing voting rights policies aimed at protecting predominantly poor, minority voters.

Another newly installed U.S. attorney, Tim Griffin in Little Rock, Ark., was accused of participating in efforts to suppress Democratic votes in Florida during the 2004 presidential election while he was research director for the Republican National Committee. He's denied any wrongdoing.

Justice Department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse said the four U.S. attorneys weren't chosen only because of their backgrounds in election issues, but “we would expect any U.S. attorney to prosecute voting fraud.”

Now the Bush administration’s emphasis on voter fraud is drawing scrutiny from the Democratic Congress, which has begun investigating the firings of eight U.S. attorneys - two of whom say that their ousters may have been prompted by the Bush administration’s dissatisfaction with their investigations of alleged Democratic voter fraud.

The administration's interest in replacing some U.S. attorneys, in voter fraud and in voting rights has sometimes had a political tinge, however.

Bush has acknowledged hearing complaints from Republicans about some U.S. attorneys’ “lack of vigorous prosecution of election fraud cases,” and administration e-mails have shown that Rove and other White House officials were involved in the dismissals and in the choice of an aide to Rove to replace one of them. Nonetheless, Bush has refused to permit congressional investigators to question Rove and others under oath.

Congress can not back down. They have to take whatever measures are necessary to restore justice and to restore Justice. If that means they have Rove picked up by the Capitol Police and delivered to the well of one or both chambers, so be it. the rogue Rove must be reined in.

Administrations come and go, but Congress is forever. If these jackals don’t void the entire American system. I for one am not willing to stand idly by while that happens.