sharks vs. tuna II

When we last looked in on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, he was preparing for his testimony before Congress on the matter of the firings of 8 U.S. attorneys. He has since testified and some one claims he used the phrase, "I don't remember," at least 200 times. I think that number is inflated, but I understand. It seemed like 200 times.

Around that same time, Alberto's former Justice Department liaison to the White House, Monica Goodling, who might easily be mistaken for a more tactful version of Ann Coulter, compared Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and his committee hearings on the U.S. Attorney firings, to a witchhunt, and said Leahy was just exactly like Senator Joe McCarthy. In fact, the whole enterprise smacked of McCarthyism to Monica. She said these things in a prepared statement, as though it were sufficient rationale for taking the 5th against self incrimination, as she fully intended to do, before any committee of Congress investigating her for any reason at all, including parking tickets she might have incurred in Georgetown.

Enter, stage left, Judge Thomas Hogan, who has finally ruled that "Monica Goodling may not refuse to testify and may not refuse to provide other information when compelled to do so..." So Monica has been granted limited Immunity in order to testify, like, right now, before the House Judiciary Committee chaired by Congressman John Conyers. Conyers described her testimony as "critical" to the hearings.

And because we relish continuity and cohesion in our presentations, this all leads back to the White House and our proverbial bridesmaid, Karl Rove.

It seems that in the fall of 2006, Karl was suddenly vitally interested in instances of voter fraud in the 2006 elections. We're talking about October, 2006. Never mind that the elections hadn't yet occurred. Karl deals in perception. He works offense, not defense.

Karl was worried about New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, specifically, and probably others would be added to his short list as the need arose. Those three states were described as "battleground" states needed to retain control of Congress. The issue, in Karl's mind, if no where else, was voter fraud being perpetrated against Republicans. (I know.) So, Alberto Gonzales' chief of staff at that time, (He's not there anymore.) Kyle Sampson, allegedly supplied another Gonzales aide, Matt Friedrich, with a 30 page "report" provided by Republican party "activists" making these voter fraud claims.

U.S. attorneys from those states as well as from others, who did not initiate investigations and lawsuits on voter fraud, and incidently create a big public furor about it, made the White House hit list. Of course, there were also indictments sought by political enemies of various GOP operatives as well.

You see, as more and more testimony is heard, and as this investigation progresses, it is becoming increasingly clear that the attorneygate firings are directly connected with too much White House influence, too much political influence, and entirely too much Rovian intervention, aimed directly at suppression of the vote in the 2006 mid-term elections among other things.
On a broader scale, this special form of cannibalism was aimed at completely politicizing the functioning of the entire federal government in ways even Nixon couldn't have imagined.

This goes way beyond political chicanery and dirty tricks. It is part of a much larger strategy that has Karl's fingerprints all over it.

Someone recently did a comparison on how various cabinet level departments, including the Justice Department, related to the White House and how much day to day contact and influence was exerted by the White House on the various functions of government at the cabinet and agency level. After all, each President has his own management style.

But this isn't about style. It's about control. So in the Clinton White House, for example, maybe there were a dozen direct contacts between Justice department staff and White House staff. ..in a four year period. But in this Bush White House there were perhaps three or four hundred contacts between the White House staff and DOJ staff. A very tight ship indeed. Politics is policy! Placed in this context, clearly, all roads lead to Rove.

(Copyright, 2007)