Christy Hardin Smith of FireDogLake is one of everyone's favorite bloggers. As a former WV prosecutor, she knows the law and she's smart as hell. But she's also incredible warm and generous.

Christy doesn't get angry. But she does get outraged. And when she's outraged, she doesn't let it go.

And unfortunately for Karl Rove, Christy is now outraged at him.

The Rule Of Karl Must End

Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.  — Lord Acton

When the Founding Fathers of our nation established a government of the people, by the people and for the people, with built-in provisions for the protection of the rule of law against the tyranny of the majority through a separation of powers into three governmental branches:  executive, legislative and judiciary, they failed to count on one thing:  the Rule of Karl...

How could the Founders anticipate that a political party would sell its integrity so cheaply to a craven, power hungry con man who promised them goodies in return for unswerving allegiance and free reign at tyranny of the underhanded?...

I would suggest to both Democrats and Republicans in Congress that nothing less than a full investigation will be tolerated by those of us who hold the rule of law to be more than simply lip service to constituents — the foundations of our Republic are at stake on this one.  A line needs to be drawn that the political hacks are no longer allowed to cross:  we live in a nation which is run on an engine fueled by the Rule of Law, and it is time that everyone in Congress lived up to their responsibility of checking and balancing executive overreach in this regard.

What needs to be made crystal clear to everyone is that the Rule of Karl is at an end, at long last.  For the sake of the nation.  For the sake of us all.

Christy is right of course - Karl Rove has completely undermined The Rule Of Law. (Some of us can even remember when virtually every Republican in Congress voted to impeach Bill Clinton because his hair-splitting testimony about a consensual affair allegedly undermined The Rule Of Law.)

But Christy is missing the broader picture. Karl Rove's assault on The Rule Of Law is not about political hackery. It's about a completely form of government we haven't seen in more than 100 years in the U.S.: Corporate Imperialism.

Karl Rove is in the coalition-building business. Progressives think of coalitions among people - environmentalists, unions, feminists, African-Americans, etc. But Karl thinks of coalitions among corporations: oil companies (ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco, Halliburton, etc.), defense contractors (LockheedMartin, Boeing, Halliburton, GE, etc.), media conglomerates (FOX, GE, TimeWarner, Tribune, etc.), even televangelists (James Dobson's Focus on the Family, Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network, and Jerry Falwell's empire).

The glue that holds Rove's coalition together is greed - raw, naked, greed. Rove keeps his coalition happy by feeding them enormous amounts of money (in the form of corrupt contracts) and raw materials (in the form of oil fields). Since much of this depends on criminal activity, Rove is forced to destroy The Rule Of Law. Exhibit A is U.S. Attorney Carol Lam, who discovered $2.3 million in bribes by defense contractors to Duke Cunningham, and had to be fired for doing her job.

Karl Rove got this idea from Mark Hanna, who built a similar coalition for President William McKinley in the 1890's. McKinley rewarded his corporate backers with America's first wave of naked imperialism, the Spanish-American War, which let us conquer Puerto Rico and Guam (which we still own) as well as Cuba and the Philippines (which we don't). McKinley also annexed Hawaii.

Corporate Imperialism isn't unique to the U.S.; it was integral to all 19th and 20th Century imperialism (British, French, German, Dutch, and Japanese). But after it led to World War I and World War II, a global consensus emerged that major powers should not compete for empires.

The Project for a New American Century rejected that consensus, and stole the 2000 election to put George Bush in power and create a new American empire based on controlling the world's oil. That's why Bush wanted to invade Iraq from day 1, and it's why he never plans to leave. That's why Bush wants to invade Iran too, even though Iran is three times bigger and 100 times better armed than Iraq. It's also why he tried to engineer "regime change" in Venezuela, but Hugo Chavez outsmarted Bush (which doesn't take much).

Invading oil-less Afghanistan was a nuisance to Bush, and he still can't be bothered to find Osama Bin Laden, the man who actually attacked us on 9/11 to start the "War on Terror." Ditto for oil-less North Korea, even though Kim Jong Il now has 5-10 nuclear weapons.

So if Christy really wants to end the Rule Of Karl, she's going to have to look far beyond the Rule of Law - she's going to have to take on the 21st Century Corporate Imperialist system he created.

Christy, we're behind you all the way!!