Karl Rove

Defeat the Wiretap Bill, Arrest Karl Rove

Bob Fertik — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 23:46:30 -0400

The Senate will cast its final vote on warrantless wiretapping late Tuesday or Wednesday, so we need to flood Congress with petitions and calls demanding a no vote on the FISA bill.

Sign our petition for impeachment, not immunity:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/141?ad=d1

Call your Senators through the switchboard at 202-224-3121 or dial direct
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
or let BlueAmerica connect you for free:
http://tools.advomatic.com/7/fisa

Join a Facebook group for your state to lobby your Senators:
http://get-fisa-right.wetpaint.com/page/List+of+Senator+Specific+Facebook+Groups

Last week, thousands of Barack Obama's supporters urged him to oppose the FISA bill. Obama finally responded with a blog post that was wrong on the key issues. In his post Obama wrote, "I'm certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too." We're doing just that through our new Obama Progressive Escrow Fund, to which 550 of you have pledged $83,821 so far.

If you support Obama (as we do) and plan to contribute, consider an informal "pledge" to our escrow fund until Obama demonstrates leadership on the progressive issues you care about most:
http://www.democrats.com/obama-escrow-fund

__________________

Arrest Karl Rove

The House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Karl Rove to testify on July 10, but on July 1 Rove announced he would defy the subpoena.

Could you or I get away with defying a Congressional subpoena? Of course not. So why can Karl Rove? Like George Bush and Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, believes he is simply above the law.

It's time for Congress to prove them wrong by using its power of "inherent contempt" to send the Sergeant-at-Arms to arrest Karl Rove (as imagined in photoshop at left) and bring him before the full House to answer to the charge of Contempt of Congress, and to punish him to the maximum extent allowed by law, including prison.

Before Democrats won Congress in 2006, Nancy Pelosi said the most important reason to put Democrats in control of Congress was "subpoena power." But now Pelosi is quietly blocking the use of inherent contempt.

Tell your Representatives to Arrest Karl Rove:
http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/106

Rove Gets Spitzer's Scalp

Bob Fertik — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 06:00:01 -0400

Karl Rove just added another Democratic scalp to his collection: Eliot Spitzer's.

Spitzer has not been charged with any crime. He was railroaded by the Corporate Media, led by Rupert Murdoch's NYPost and FOX News, with Karl Rove's "loyal Bushies" leaking furiously from Bush's InJustice Department.

So what's the standard here? If hiring prostitutes is a disqualification for office, then David Vitter must resign today too. In fact, a good chunk of the men in politics must also resign (and possibly a few women as well). And a bunch of reporters and editors must quit as well. And pundits too - yes I'm talking 'bout you, Dick Toesucker Morris.

If adultery is the standard, then Larry Craig must resign today, along with half the men in politics and the media.

If hypocrisy is the standard, then everyone in politics and the media must resign today, because there isn't one who isn't a hypocrite in some large or small way. Take Saint John McCain on torture, campaign finance, immigration, Iraq, global warming, lobbyists... you name it.

And if a criminal violation is the standard, then George Bush and Dick Cheney should not only resign immediately, they should go before a firing squad for war crimes (invading Iraq and torture) and treason (outing Valerie Plame).

McRove: McCain Embraces Rove

Bob Fertik — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 08:46:18 -0500

Next to Bush and Cheney, no one has poisoned American politics - and hurt America in every possible way - more than Karl Rove. So why has Saint John McCain embraced him?

Karl Rove, the president’s top political hand since his Texas days, recently gave money to McCain and soon after had a private conversation with the senator. A top McCain adviser said both Mehlman and Rove are now informally advising the campaign. Rove refused to detail his conversation with McCain.

It's easy to see Rove's evil handiwork on behalf of McCain, for example the Canadian story about alleged Obama-Clinton doubletalk on NAFTA.

It's also hysterical to see Rove on FOX TV praising McCain for adopting a starving Bangladeshi child - the same child Rove featured in a nasty South Carolina push poll that proved decisive in giving Bush the nomination:

Rove invented a uniquely injurious fiction for his operatives to circulate via a phony poll. Voters were asked, “Would you be more or less likely to vote for John McCain…if you knew he had fathered an illegitimate black child?” This was no random slur. McCain was at the time campaigning with his dark-skinned daughter, Bridget, adopted from Bangladesh.

If John McCain had any character, he'd never speak to the man who spread that lie. (If McCain were a Founding Father, he'd have challenged Rove to a duel.) But now he's hugging him, just as he's hugging Rove's boss, George Bush.

It wasn't always so. Here's what happened during the 2000 debate in South Carolina:

During a commercial break, Bush grasped McCain's hands and made a sugary plea for less acrimony in their campaign. When McCain pointed out that Bush's allies were savaging him in direct-mail and phone campaigns, Bush played the innocent. "Don't give me that shit," McCain growled, pulling away. "And take your hands off me."

I can't wait until a reporter asks him about that.

Update 1: Here's a fantastic cartoon video about McCain's "endorsement" of Bush in 2004.

The Karl Rove Playbook for Losing to Obama

Bob Fertik — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 04:46:42 -0500

Karl Rove stenographer Mark Halperin did us all a favor and collected 16 of Rove's "best" ideas to help John McCain "take down" Barack Obama.

So now when McCain and the Republicans implement these ideas, all we have to say is "this is straight out of Karl Rove's playbook."

And for the record, Steve Benen did a brilliant job (as always) dismembering each one.

1. Play the national security card without hesitation.

2. Talk about the Iraq War without apologies or perceived contradiction.

3. Go at Obama unambiguously from the right.

4. Encourage interest groups, bloggers, and right-leaning media to explore Obama’s past.

5. Make an issue of Obama’s acknowledged drug use.

6. Allow some supporters to risk being accused of using the race card when criticizing Obama.

7. Exploit Michelle Obama’s mistakes and address her controversial remarks with unrestricted censure.

8. Play dirty without alienating his party.

9. Dismiss Obama’s brief national tenure from his own lofty platform of decades in the Senate – there will be no ambiguity about who has more experience as conventionally defined.

10. Use his sterling war record to reinforce his image of patriotism and valor – and contrast it with his opponent’s.

11. Emphasize Barack Hussein Obama’s unusual name and exotic background through a Manchurian Candidate prism.

12. Employ third party groups like the NRA to hit Obama on issues that might turn off general election voters. Perhaps an ad such as this will run in Ohio: “So, what do you really know about Barack Obama? Did you know he supports meeting with the head of terrorist states? Do you know he wants to get rid of your right to own a handgun? Do you know he is calling for the repeal of the law preventing gay marriage? Do you know he is for a trillion-dollar tax increase? What do you really know about Barack Obama?”

13. Face an electorate less consumed with “change change change” (the main priority for Democratic voters) and keenly interested in “ready from day one” as an equally important ideal.

14. Link biography (experience/courage) and leadership (straight talk) to a vision animated by detail – accentuating Obama’s relative lack of specificity.

15. Give Obama his first real race against a credible Republican. (Clinton has always asserted that Obama would wilt before a fierce Republican assault.)

16. Confront Obama with a united, focused campaign absent of second-guessing, which hits the same themes and message every day.

Newsweek Hires Karl Rove - a War Criminal and Traitor

Bob Fertik — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 17:13:56 -0500

Newsweek editor Jon Meacham is pairing two new columnists: Markos Moulitsas (Kos) from the Left and Karl Rove from the Right. Here's Meacham's "justification":

Whether one agrees or disagrees with Karl, there is no arguing that he has been a critical player in the political world with insights and experiences that we think will give our readers something unique.

Kos is proud to be matched with Rove:

Newsweek actually got this right, for once. They balanced out a movement progressive with a movement conservative. In years past, Rove's "balance" would've been Bob Shrum. Now, they're apparently starting to realize the difference between a movement partisan and an establishment hack.

but Kos is dead wrong.

It's beyond outrageous that Newsweek would hire a man who, as Chair of the White House Iraq Group, is as personally responsible as anyone else for the illegal and lie-based invasion of Iraq that has led to the violent deaths of nearly 4000 U.S. soldiers and over 1 million Iraqis so far, with no end in sight.

Would Newsweek hire one of Saddam Hussein's top deputies as a columnist? Saddam's illegal invasion of Iran in 1980 produced a comparable number of violent deaths.

Rove also helped Bob Novak expose the identity of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative working to stop the spread of WMD's - an act of High Treason.

Tell Newsweek you're cancelling your subscription to protest the hiring of a war criminal and traitor:
251 W 57th Street, New York, NY 10019
Phone: 212-445-4000
Fax: 212-445-5068
letters@newsweek.com

Who is Clay Johnson?

Bob Fertik — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 11:55:25 -0400

CNN is reporting DHS Mike Chertoff will be nominated for Attorney General, and Clay Johnson III will be nominated to replace Chertoff.

Who is Clay Johnson?

Johnson is currently working in obscurity as Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management and Budget.

The Deputy Director for Management provides government-wide leadership to Executive Branch agencies to improve agency and program performance.

Yeah and what a great job he has done - can you say FEMA and Hurricane Katrina?

Prior to this he was the Assistant to the President for Presidential Personnel, responsible for the organization that identifies and recruits approximately 4000 senior officials, middle management personnel and part-time board and commission members.

In other words, he's the guy that filled the Executive Branch with "loyal Bushie" ideologues like Monica Goodling.

From 1995 to 2000, Mr. Johnson worked with Governor George W. Bush in Austin, first as his Appointments Director, then as his Chief of Staff, and then as the Executive Director of the Bush-Cheney Transition.

So he managed Bush's initial appointment of criminals like Rove, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft. And he's very close to the whole Texas mafia of Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Joe Allbaugh, Jim Baker, and the rest of the gang of thieves and war criminals.

But despite his clout, Johnson only made news during the 1999 scrubbing of J.H. Hatfield's unauthorized biography of George W. Bush, Fortunate Son. Amy Goodman summarized the story in August 2003:

In the book, Hatfield charges that Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession. Why wasn’t the future President charged? Hatfield writes that Bush’s father used his political connections to have his son’s record expunged.

Soon after publication of Fortunate Son the Dallas Morning News received information about Hatfield’s criminal past.

The media jumped all over it and Hatfield’s reputation and credibility were ruined.

St. Martins Press promised to turn Fortunate Son into “furnace fodder.” It withdrew 70,000 copies from bookshelves and destroyed them. But a small publisher Soft Skull Press reprinted the book with the banner “The Book They Burned is Back.”

Hatfield had previously refused to reveal the source of his information about Bush’s alleged cocaine arrest. He now to decided to name him. He claimed it was none other than Karl Rove, Bush’s closest political adviser.

If Rove did indeed leak the information, he couldn’t have leaked it to a better subject. Soon after publication of the Fortunate Son, Hatfield’s credibility came under fierce attack.

The media followed the trail laid out for them. They diverted inquiries about Bush’s drug history to stories about Hatfield’s checkered past. He lost two other book contracts and faced financial ruin and obscurity.

The character assassination finally took its toll. In July 2001, Hatfield was found dead of an apparent suicide in a hotel room in Springdale, Arkansas. He was 43 years old. Police said he left notes for his family and friends that listed alcohol, financial problems and Fortunate Son as reasons for killing himself. He is survived by a wife and daughter.

Hatfield's cocaine revelation relied on two sources besides Karl Rove, namely Clay Johnson and Bush's Austin minister Jim Mayfield. Sander Hicks of Soft Skull Press reported how he finally got Hatfield to name his sources:

Two months after the bloody October of Hatfield’s public destruction, it was a crisp sunny winter day in New York City. Although Hatfield had the flu, he taped his portion of 60 Minutes early in the morning, and I went in later. Leslie Stahl, the elegant host of the program, had pointedly asked me on tape if I knew the sources. I said no, but that Hatfield had promised to reveal them to me.

After the taping, we walked through the Lower East Side. I had taken Hatfield and his lawyer, and my coworker to lunch at a Chinese restaurant. I needed to hold Jim Hatfield to his promise to share the sources with me; I needed to see the phone and travel records. I needed to know the whole thing wasn't a big sick joke. I needed to be 100% sure. My gut had me already believing in Jim Hatfield. He believed in what we were doing. He stood behind all his research. He admired me for making a maverick decision, and attempting to redeem his battered book.

Hatfield stopped on the corner of Ludlow and Rivington and turned to me in the bright light. His hands were stuffed deep into the pockets of his Navy peacoat. He looked tired, but determined. He looked down the street.

"You've got to take this information with you to your grave. You've got to swear."

I swore not to repeat it to anyone. I also knew that the truth is bigger than one person. We would both choose to reveal the sources publicly when the time was right, when we had no other choice. When we no longer had anything left to lose.

"The Eufaula Connection? That was Karl Rove. The other top Bush advisor was Clay Johnson. The Bush confidante, was his minister, Mayfield. Now you know. Remember, you’ve got to swear now...."

Does George Bush really want to subject Clay Johnson to national scrutiny? Back in 1999, Karl Rove could kill a story like this by driving Hatfield to commit suicide. But when progressive bloggers discover this story, it will be impossible for Bush to kill it.

Stay tuned!

Update 1 12 p.m.: CNN is now reporting Chertoff is just one of many names being floated for A.G. Boy that was quick!

Update 2: Keith Olbermann interviewed Jim Moore about Johnson's Andover/Yale frat ties to Bush. Moore explained that no sane person wanted to move to Washington to join the disastrous Bush administration in its final year, so the only people Bush can count on are those who cut themselves and exchanged blood as teenagers.

Sunday is Karl Rove Day!

Bob Fertik — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 14:29:23 -0400

Let me quote Faiz in full:

If It’s Sunday, It’s Karl Rove

Karl Rove will be a guest this Sunday on Face the Nation, Meet the Press, and Fox News Sunday (ABC’s This Week is hosting a Democratic presidential debate).

Thus far, Rove’s farewell media blitz has simply provided him a platform to offer partisan attacks.

The media will be tempted to pick “Bush’s brain” for his views on the political horserace, on everything from the Democratic presidential candidates to Iraq to Bush’s veto threats. But they shouldn’t forget that Rove has yet to personally account for much of his sordid record in the White House. Here are a few of the issues that Rove needs to be asked about:

– Promoting the war as a member of the White House Iraq Group

– Leaking Valerie Plame’s identity

– Compiling the list of fired U.S. attorneys

– Politicizing government agencies

– Dealing with Jack Abramoff

– Violating White House email record-keeping rules

And there are a variety of other misdeeds. Let us know in the comments section what you’d like to see Rove get grilled on. We’ll be watching this Sunday to see if Rove is tossed some softballs or zinged with hardballs.

I'd add this question:

Has Dick Cheney persuaded George Bush to attack Iran - and did you quit because you disagree?

Why Did Karl Rove Resign?

Bob Fertik — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 07:01:46 -0400

For family reasons? Yeah right - his son is in college. The real reason could either be good or bad.

Good reasons:

He will be indicted and frog-marched to jail for one of his innumerable crimes. Marcy Wheeler thinks the most likely prosecutions involve (a) Jack Abramoff (if Susan Ralston rats on Rove), (b) violating the Hatch Act by showing his powerpoint to every federal agency, or (c) the firing of U.S. Attorneys, particularly David Iglesias
Congressional Democrats refuse to accept "executive privilege" as an excuse to keep Rove from testifying under oath, and Bush didn't want to fight this bloody battle with Congress
Congressional Democrats found a copy of the 5 million missing emails
Colin Powell will soon reveal Rove's role in lying the nation into Iraq
Polls show Republicans will lose in a landslide due to Bush's disastrous policies so the GOP's corporate backers threw him under the bus to help the GOP change its "image"

Bad reasons:

He lost a crucial policy battle with Dick Cheney over Iran and U.S. bombing is imminent
He has advance warning the economy is about to collapse and is getting out before the deluge
He will be working for an evil Republican Presidential candidate
Rupert Murdoch is hiring him at FOX News to help Murdoch take over the world
Someone even more evil than Rove stole his job and blackmailed him into retiring

Why do you think Rove resigned?

Update 1: here are Rove's predictions for the 2008 elections:

Rove said he expects Democrats to give the 2008 presidential nomination to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, whom he described as "a tough, tenacious, fatally flawed candidate." He also said Republicans have "a very good chance" to hold onto the White House in next year's elections.

Of course Rove predicted the GOP would win both houses of Congress in 2006, famously citing "The Math." Let's hope "The Math" is just as accurate in 2008.

Update 2: here are Rove's other predictions:

Bush "will move back up in the polls" towards 40% - while the housing market is crashing?
"Iraq will be in a better place" as the surge continues - with ethnic cleansing spreading, Maliki aligning with Iran, Parliament imploding, no electricity or water, more guns than people, and our occupation forces exhausted?
In the fall, "the budget fight will have been fought to our advantage" - which means Bush will veto every Democratic bill. Will that finally convince Democrats to impeach him?
"We'll see in the battle over FISA a fissure in the Democratic Party." Clearly Reid and Pelosi need to exert some party discipline to get conservative Democrats to oppose warrantless wiretapping by Alberto Gonzales.

Think Progress has Rove's record of failed predictions. PoliticsTV has Rove's video hall of shame.

Update 3: Sen. Pat Leahy isn't letting Rove walk away from his crimes:

Earlier this month, Karl Rove failed to comply with the Judiciary Committee’s subpoena to testify about the mass firings of United States Attorneys. Despite evidence that he played a central role in these firings, just as he did in the Libby case involving the outing of an undercover CIA agent and improper political briefings at over 20 government agencies, Mr. Rove acted as if he was above the law. That is wrong. Now that he is leaving the White House while under subpoena, I continue to ask what Mr. Rove and others at the White House are so desperate to hide. Mr. Rove’s apparent attempts to manipulate elections and push out prosecutors citing bogus claims of voter fraud shows corruption of federal law enforcement for partisan political purposes, and the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue its investigation into this serious issue.

The list of senior White House and Justice Department officials who have resigned during the course of these congressional investigations continues to grow, and today, Mr. Rove added his name to that list. There is a cloud over this White House, and a gathering storm. A similar cloud envelopes Mr. Rove, even as he leaves the White House.

Hey Pat - invoke inherent contempt and frog-march Rove before Congress!

Update 4: Joe Wilson reminds us that Rove should have been fired years ago:

Karl Rove’s resignation signals the final chapter in the Bush administration’s betrayal of the identity of a covert CIA officer. When this breach of national security occurred, the President promised the American people that anybody in his administration responsible for the leak would be removed. Rove, identified by the prosecutors as one of the leakers, not only was not summarily dismissed, but has been allowed to leave on his own terms, to praise from the President.

This sordid tale of compromising national security to cover-up and distract from the false rationale for the invasion of Iraq will forever remain in history a black mark on the Bush presidency.

Guest Richard Power: Lessons from Soviet-Style Show Trial of Don Siegelman -- Learned or Unlearned?

Chip — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:31:42 -0400

Hard Rain Journal 8-5-07: Lessons from Soviet-Style Show Trial of Don Siegelman -- Learned or Unlearned?
By Richard Power

Like most of you, I want to see Bush and Cheney impeached.

There is sufficient evidence, already available in open source, on a range of issues, including Iraq, Katrina, Plame, the politicization of the DoJ, violations of the Geneva Accords, FISA, FOIA and the Bill of Rights, etc.

And if impeachment is politically unrealistic -- in our current circumstances, a Senate trial would almost certainly result in acquittal -- like most of you, I do not understand why censure, indeed multiple censures, are not aggressively pursued as a viable alternative.

Like most of you, I would be willing to support the cutting off of funding for military operations in Iraq, assuming there was enough money in the pipeline to bring the men and women of the US military home safely, and responsibly.

Like most of you, I do not understand why there was no filibuster of the Alito and/or Roberts appointments.

Like most of you, I am weary of making excuses for the Democratic leadership.

And like most of you, I find it almost incomprehensible that so few (almost no) Republican members of Congress have stood up to the Bush-Cheney regime in any significant or sustained way.

(At this point, the US mainstream news media does not even deserve our bewilderment.)

But there is another dimension to all of this disappointment that needs to be factored into our ruminations; there is another bitter truth that must be acknowledged. Perhaps there are threats on the table. Perhaps the situation is much worse than most people realize.

Consider the fate of Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama, arguably the most popular Democratic political leader in state history.

Could impeachment be off the table because there are threats on the table? If a political leader as popular and as successful as Siegelman can be sent to federal prison on such trumped up charges, who is safe?

There are important lessons to be learned from the Siegelman case.

If they are learned, we will see the Bush-Cheney regime brought down in accord with the US Constitution, or at the very least, we will somehow limp into the 2008 national elections without having launched another war or undergone a declaration of martial law, and then turn the page.

But if these lessons go unlearned, your children and your children's children will know little or nothing truthful about what patriots -- from Tom Paine and Patrick Henry thru Medgar Evers, Dr. King and the Kennedy brothers to Pat Tillman and Paul Wellstone -- really lived, fought and in many cases died for.

What is the most important lesson? It is not us or them, it is them or the USA itself. They must be stopped -- and they must be stopped soon.

Here is my transcription of David Bender's Ring of Fire interview with Harper's Scott Horton; it provides vital insights into the Siegelman case in particular, and perhaps into the general reticence to make any direct moves against the Bush-Cheney cabal. -- Richard Power

David Bender: Former Alabama governor Don Siegelman has just begun serving a seven year term in federal prison, after having been convicted of accepting a half million dollar bribe. But critics say his prosecution was a political vendetta by Republicans. Karl Rove has been implicated. Dozens of former state attorneys general are demanding a congressional investigation, and members of the House Judiciary Committee are calling for a Justice Department probe of Don Siegelman's prosecution.
Scott Horton is an attorney and a contributor to Harper's Magazine, where he has been covering the Segalman case.
Scott, welcome to Ring of Fire. ... Explain this to me. What we the charges against Don Siegelman and how where the brought to bear against him.

Scott Horton: We've had a series of different proceedings brought against him going back to 2001. The first set involved accusations, always accusations of political corruption involving dozens of different acts. The first set was investigated by the Alabama state attorney general. A man named Bill Pryor, a very controversial fellow ... extremely, intensely partisan ... Pryor concluded he couldn't make a case, but he then went and try to sell to the Department of Justice, the of bringing a case ...

Bender: We have talked about bribery. What were the charges? What was the alleged case against Don Siegelman? [It] involved automobiles, kickbacks for state favors?

Horton: The absolute core accusation is this -- a man named Richard Scrushy, the CEO of Health South, made a contribution of $500,000 to the Alabama Education Foundation, which was an organization that was involved lobbying for an education lottery in Alabama.

Bender: A lottery that Siegelman had run on?

Horton: Right. And then Mr. Scrushy was appointed to a hospital oversight board in Alabama. The core accusation all the way at the base of all of this is that Don Siegelman sold that office, the appointment to that board, for $500,000. Note: Siegelman derived no personal benefit from this whatsoever. Richard Scrushy is a Republican, who opposed Don Siegelman, and he had been appointed to that board by three prior governors, most of them Republicans. ... One of the most preposterous cases ever brought.

Bender: As I recall, one of the judges used that word "preposterous" in here somewhere. So go forward. Bill Pryor could not make a case in 2001 ...

Horton: Then we have another case being brought involving some incidents in Tuscaloosa, in the Northern District of Alabama. It comes before a judge named Clemens, and he instantly starts asking questions about the political motivations of about the political motivation of the prosecutors, and says "Look, I am not going to allow this to go forward in my court unless you can make a prima facie case before me that you have got something here." They fail. The matter is dismissed. And then, in a matter of weeks, it is recommenced in the Middle District of Alabama. And this time it is commenced by another US attorney ...

Bender: So they went court-shopping?

Horton: Exactly. Which is not appropriate. In fact, it is a serious violation of legal norms. But there is hardly a legal norm or rule that has not been violated in the course of this prosecution.

Bender: It is important to note here, Scott, that Don Siegelman was one of the most successful Democrats in the modern history of Alabama, in the last twenty five years, in a heavily Republican state.

Horton: I would say he was the most successful Democrat. He was the Democrat that Alabama Republicans most liked to hate. He had been elected to every significant state-wide office ...

Bender: Secretary of State, Lt. Governor ... Attorney General as well?

Horton: Attorney General as well. He had sometimes won by landslides. He was incredibly popular. All this at a time when the Republican Party was consolidating its vise-like grip on politics in Alabama. So they hated him .. And there was a lot of concentrated energy on taking him out.

Bender: So let's pick up the thread. ...

Horton: To jump forward a little bit, recently, in the last two and a half months, they have gotten a lot of detail about what was happening when this case got launched. ... A Republican attorney named Jill Simpson filed an affidavit. Ms. Simpson had worked in the election campaign of Don Siegelman's opponent. She files an affidavit in which she discloses that back in 2002, she had heard a number of very prominent Republican figures talking, in her presence, about the effort to get Don Siegelman. And the discussion included getting Karl involved. And William Canary, who is the husband of Leura Canary [the US attorney in the Middle District], had talked to Karl about this, and Karl had talked to Justice and this would be taken care of.

Bender: "Karl" would be Karl Rove?

Horton: Exactly. And William Canary was the partner of Karl Rove. Karl Rove had a long period of time in which he was deeply involved in Alabama politics. In 1990, he managed a campaign through which the Republicans took control of the Alabama court system at the highest level. ... And that is marked as the point at which the Republican Party really rose to take control of state apparatus ...

Bender: So if you follow the thread here all of it leads through the Republican administrations at both the state and national levels, and Karl Rove, clearly, one could make a case, was intimately involved in the details of this. But unfortunately, as we will see moving forward ... with the whole US attorneys issue, there is no way to make these cases. Because they are denying access to these records ... they are stonewalling ...

Horton: Except, remember, that we have a Republican lawyer who says she heard this being discussed. We have gone back and checked a number of details surrounding her statement, and we have found a contemporaneous corroboration of this, when she sought Ethics advice, from other attorneys in Alabama, we know that the meeting actually occurred, we know the people she said were there were there. Everything falls into place. And then we've got a lot of circumstantial evidence suggesting that Rove was indeed involved in this ... This prosecution was right at the top of the political agenda ...

Bender: ... Where does this go from here?

Horton: Well, the sentencing itself was extremely theatrical. The judge insisted that he be manacled and hand-cuffed, and dragged out of the court room in front of press cameras. Something I have never seen happen before. It was poor political theatre from beginning to end. This is a case where there is quite compelling, indeed, overwhelming grounds for appeal, and I certainly expect this is going to be overturned on appeal.

Bender: This sounds like Russia, this sounds like a show trail.

Horton: I started my own career observing trials in the former Soviet Union and I have to say that more than once looking at this it has reminded me of some of the things I saw in Russia. But we have to go back and look at what is happening with the prosecutors. Because the larger dimension of this is the politicization of prosecution. The government is saying now, "Oh, this has all been handled by local prosecutors, career people down in Alabama." They even have the local prosecutor coming out and making statements, repeatedly, to that effect. That's a lie.

Bender: Who is Noel Hillman?

Horton: Noel Hillman was the head of the Public Integrity section of the Department of Justice. We know from the beginning of the case that Public Integrity was providing supervision. Noel Hillman went down and gave a press conference. He since has been appointed as a federal judge. He was also appointed to be a Court of Appeals judge, and that appointment was pulled at the last minute. We have been told there is a very clear reason why: if he came before Congress for hearings, he could be asked about the Siegelman case and the White House didn't want to risk that.

Bender: And it appears that it is not just that Siegelman case ... Noel Hillman ... was involved not only in this, but in a case in Wisconsin, which was thrown out by the courts, and that there has been a clear, partisan politicization of prosecutions ... this is sort of the flip-side of [the US attorneys scandal], those attorneys may have been fired for not being sufficiently partisan, we are now seeing what happens when you get US attorneys and Justice Department officials who are partisan zealots ...

Horton: ... It is under Noel Hillman that we get seven prosecutions of Democrats to every one [prosecution of] Republicans ...

Bender: Seven to one Democrats to Republicans prosecuted under the Public Integrity section of the Justice Department? ...

Horton: And we have people in the Justice Department right now telling us that it went far beyond the Public Integrity section, and that there were people at the level of Deputy Attorney General, Attorney General and in the White House who were involved in directing these cases, which leads us back to Karl Rove, Harriet Miers, and others.

( Click here for the Words of Power Progressive Talk Radio -- Archive )

I urge you to support progressive talk radio in general, and Ring of Fire in particular. Subscribe to the show's podcast!

Ring of Fire is, indeed, the best weekly news and opinion magazine on the air waves. Imagine how different our public debate would be if Ring of Fire took the slot of Sixty Minutes or 20/20 or Face the Nation or ABC Week in Review or the PBS News Hour. For a refreshing alternative, tune into GoLeftTV.

Why Isn't Karl Rove in Jail?

Bob Fertik — Tue, 17 Jul 2007 17:32:39 -0400

In an interview on C-SPAN with Brian Lamb, Novakula reminded everyone that Karl Rove helped Novak expose Valerie Plame's identity:

LAMB: [Concerning Karl Rove] you say, “never enjoyed such a good source inside the White House.”

NOVAK: That’s true. He was a confirming source on the Valerie Plame story. He revealed himself as having – he quoted himself of what he told me, so that the confidentiality was gone by his own statement.

Novak didn't commit a crime because he didn't know Plame was covert. But what about Rove - did he know? And even if he didn't know, didn't he break the law by mishandling classified information?

Why hasn't Henry Waxman hauled Rove before his committee to find out?