Tango Republicano
August 11, 2007 by Lulu Maude
Rove leads, administration officials follows. It isn’t just that Alberto Gonzales fired perfectly good U.S. Attorneys in the current scandal; that competent people have been replaced by political hacks is just the tip of the iceberg.
It’s that Karl Rove’s quest for permanent Republican control is at the heart of the matter.
This isn’t a case just about rewarding Dubya’s political cronies. It’s about putting people into positions that could impair the will of the people to be manifested in the dirty business of campaigning and the actual casting of votes.
Greg Palast, the last of the great investigative journalists, came by his revelations on the Republican strategy to invalidate whole blocks of votes through a joke of sorts. John A. Wooden, the wag behind WhiteHouse.org and in the old days, GeorgeWBush.org, the latter having been purchased back by the Republicans for the current project of creating the George W. Bush Library. (Now if someone will just teach Dubya to read before the Grand Opening of the facility housing all those censored documents… but I digress.)
Because the campaign added GeorgeWBush.org to its list of addresses for sending emails regarding campaign strategies to the party faithful, Wooden was on the receiving end of voter lists selected for caging; names of voters from largely black neighborhoods whose votes would be challenged and discarded in national elections.
Overseeing this program was a Republican operative named Tim Griffin. He instructed Republican state parties to send letters to newly registered voters welcoming them to the franchise, only to seize the names and addresses for challenge at voting sites. The pretext was to present them as fraudulent registrations.
If the name Tim Griffin rings a faint bell in your mind, he’s the man that Karl Rove arranged as the replacement for the Arkansas U.S. Attorney, the one who quickly resigned when copies of his caging lists and other documents held by the BBC (Palast’s outlet for reporting, since his native land pretty much stifles his reporting) were requested by Congressman John Conyers.
Whoops.
Palast’s contention is that we should worry less about giving Alberto Gonzales the boot and concentrate instead on giving Karl Rove the orange jumpsuit.
The installation of party operatives in U.S. Attorney offices is less about championing an overturn of many of the civil liberties that progressives hold dear than it is about the effort to systematically deny millions of Americans the right to have their say in who carries out their wishes.
Gonzales is a sleaze–make no mistake about it-but his recent appearances in Senate hearings confirm that he hasn’t the lead in this dangerous dance. He isn’t bright enough. He is probably more on a par with his boss. The director of the fancy footwork is Karl Rove, and he should be the focus of this investigation.
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Lulu Maude, great post! Great post. I’m sure you’ve both seen and read Bush’s Brain, about Karl Rove and his tactics. He, along with Dick Cheney, are the top two most dangerous people in the United States. Gonzales and Bush are simply puppets. Straw men.
Doesn’t it make you ILL that the Dem’s have yet to use the evidence Palast has? They want a smoking gun yet the fuckwits refuse to acknowledge Palast’s evidence.
Because they really don’t give to shits about prosecuting Abu Gonzales..they just want to grandstand.
But I do have to say that I LOVE your photoshop Lulu! Excellent
Bush, Cheney, and Rove’s, the real axis of evil. I can remember hearing during the last 2 elections where these friggen repugs were working to get blocks of votes discounted because they went against them. It really peeves me that these idiots are blatantly obvious in their underhanded idiocy to hold onto power and they continuously laugh it off and get away with it. I want to scream!
I still say that Dubbie will find a way near the end of his (post as idiot and chief) by placing a crown on his head much like Napoleon did. He’ll start that war on Iran so he can use it as an excuse for continuing in place…blah, blah! I don’t have a clue how we’ll stop it…but we must try. If we don’t have the Congress Critters on our side for it…we’re doomed. Of course it will come down to the SCOTUS…and they’ll undoubtedly give him what he wants. I’ll leave this country in the dust if I have to.
Great post, Lulu Maude, & welcome. I had no idea that the guy behind WhiteHouse.org got copies of those incriminating emails. Whoops, indeed!
I think you’re right with your thesis here — the point of keeping ‘Berto in office (& recently handing him the keys to the kingdom in terms of declaring who’s to spied upon without warrants, don’t forget) was always to shield Karl Rove from having to pay the price for authoring the unending dirty trix that have kept the Republicons in power.
Democrats have more than enough evidence to impeach the lot of them. Question is, now, why DON’T they? And why do they keep caving in to the most obvious ploys & continue to turn our civil liberties over to this gang who can’t be trusted with ANYTHING having to do with democratic government?
I don’t have anything postive or illuminating to say about the Gonzogate fiasco…awful…mess…BUT you actually made me laugh and curse and I loved your post…and the photo, well was pretty disturbing…but funny….great…