Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Machiavelli’s Inbred Children

by digby

It seems that every day we hear of another example of the Bush administration politicizing the Justice department. Today we hear from a former career prosecutor in the civil rights division, filling in another piece of the puzzle:

I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws — particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies — from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants.

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

It has notably shirked its legal responsibility to protect voting rights. From 2001 to 2006, no voting discrimination cases were brought on behalf of African American or Native American voters. U.S. attorneys were told instead to give priority to voter fraud cases, which, when coupled with the strong support for voter ID laws, indicated an intent to depress voter turnout in minority and poor communities.

Here’s another article debunking the “voter fraud” trope.

No surprise there. What is a surprise is how nobody seems to have seen this coming. The rough outlines were available when I wrote about what I saw as an emerging “illegal aliens are voting” theme almost a year ago. I thought they were preparing to use it for last November but I was a premature anti-purger.

But since I first started writing on-line, one of my recurring themes is that the modern Republican party has become fundamentally hostile to democracy.(And we already knew they were crooks.) This was first made obvious to me back in 1994, when Republican leader Dick Armey famously stated “your president is just not that important for us.” They went on to impeach that president against the clear will of the people.

But the biggest clue about what they were up to came in 2000 with the Florida recount. I know it seems like ancient history to go back to that but it is extremely important to remember just how outrageous their tactics were: the Gore campaign used legal tactics and the Bush campaign didn’t. There was the “bourgeois riot” and dirty trickster Roger Stone directing the street theatre from a van. (Here’s a list of what the Village Voice termed the five worst Bush recount outrages.) They used every lever of power they could to count illegally cast overseas ballots. They operated a hypocritical and situational media campaign that the press completely failed to properly analyze until it was too late. And after they did they helpfully told those who objected to “get over it.” And I guess we did.

The Republicans have been remarkably good about keeping their mouths shut about the Florida shennanigans, pretending that Jeb Bush’s electoral apparatus gave them no unusual help. Still, I was surprised to see a former Florida recount icon show up on the Lehrer News Hour last week to argue that the US Attorney firings were completely above board. His name is Michael Carvin and he was the lawyer who argued the Bush case before the Florida Supreme Court. Here’s his picture. I’m sure many of you will remember him:

The Newshour failed to identify him as one of the Florida recount team and instead named him merely as a former Reagan official. But he didn’t fail to carry the Bush water one more time:

MICHAEL CARVIN: I really think this is much ado about very little. I’m not saying that they haven’t mishandled this from a public relations perspective. They clearly have.

But the notion that firing eight U.S. attorneys with White House personnel involved is somehow shocking is like saying you’re shocked to discover there’s gambling in Casablanca. I don’t know where these people have been.

There’s not one member of that Judiciary Committee who hasn’t called the White House or the Justice Department and said, “My cousin or my law school roommate wants to be a U.S. attorney.”

So the notion that these kinds of appointments and removals in Walter’s administration — they fired all 93 in one slot — the notion that is isn’t influenced by the fact that the president needs his team in place, both at the main Justice Department and in the field, is really quite silly and quite counterfactual.

This would be typical Carvin. For instance, here’s something he said after Bush v Gore was decided:

The new deadline for all recounts to be submitted to Katherine Harris was 5 p.m. Sunday, November 26. Now, that Sunday afternoon you could watch any of the television coverage and see that Palm Beach was still counting. And by late afternoon you heard various officials in Palm Beach acknowledging that they were not going to be finished by five. Now, we maintain that was completely illegal, because the law said you had to manually recount all ballots. [See Village Voice top five outrages for why this is such a slimy position for him to take.]

But as five o’clock approached, we heard that the secretary of state was going to accept the Palm Beach partial recount — even though the Palm Beach partial recount was blatantly illegal. We were told that the secretary of state’s view was that unless Palm Beach actually informed her — in writing or otherwise — that the returns were only a partial recount, she could not infer that on her own.

So we made some calls to a few Republicans overseeing the Palm Beach recount. We told them to gently suggest to the canvassing board that it might as well put PARTIAL RETURN on the front of the returns that were to be faxed up in time for the deadline. The reason we gave was clarity — that the words PARTIAL RETURN would distinguish those returns from the full count that would be coming in later that night. I’m not exactly sure what happened, but I think the Palm Beach board did in the end write PARTIAL RECOUNT on the returns. We all know that the Secretary of State, in the end, rejected them. [By rejecting them, he means that she said that a partial return missed the deadline altogether and all the previously uncounted votes that were counted in the partial recount were never added to the tally. This had the effect of never allowing Gore to take the lead.]

I think the board members probably agreed to write the PARTIAL RECOUNT notation for two reasons. First of all, I think they hadn’t slept in 48 hours, so I think they’d sort of do anything. Second of all, I don’t think they or anybody else would have suspected that it would actually make any difference. Who would imagine that without the simple notation of PARTIAL RETURN the partial count would have been accepted as a complete count by the secretary of state? Even while the television showed them still counting?

But I don’t think it was Machiavellian to suggest to the board that it write PARTIAL RECOUNT, because that is what it was. I think it would have been sort of Machiavellian to suggest to pretend they were not partial returns. [Talk Magazine, March 2001, p. 172

I know that virtually nobody cares about this anymore, if they ever did, but this was so full of nonsense that it amazed me that he got away with saying it. And the tale he tells, bad as it is, is still obviously not the whole story.

They were clearly colluding with Katherine Harris’ office throughout and they determined that she could reject all of the Palm Beach county votes they had counted by 5pm with this little gambit. Everything depended on not allowing Al Gore to ever take the lead or their whole PR campaign would start to fall apart.

It’s a small thing, I know, and probably one of thousands of such small acts of illegal and inappropriate collusion between Jeb Bush and the campaign during the recount. But it happened and we knew it happened. And it was done by people like Michael Carvin, former Reagan Justice Department official who now implies that the US Attorney scandal is nothing because everyone knows that the Bush Justice department is an enforcement arm of the Republican Party and that’s perfectly normal.

That is just how these people think. It’s why they hunted Clinton and Reno like dogs for eight years, determined to find evidence of wrongdoing. They either assume everyone does it because they do or they know they can innoculate themselves against accusations of their own bad acts by getting to the punch first. (And harrassing Democrats is rewarding in and of itself.)

I wrote to reporters Don Van Atta and Jake Tapper about this Carvin tid-bit when they were covering the media recount for the NY Times and Salon (and Tapper was writing a book about it.) Tapper was uninterested, but Van Natta called me and I told him where to find the quote. (Talk Magazine is not on lexis-nexis.) Then came 9/11, the recount story was pretty much shelved and the entire country was told we had to gather around the president.

But then, we had been told that from the beginning, hadn’t we? The media were complicit in this, helping the Republicans along every step of the way during the recount with constant rending of garments about a constitutional crisis and fantasies about tanks in the streets if things weren’t settled instantly. (The deadlines! My god, the deadlines!) And when it was all done, they told us repeatedly to get over it.

And here we are, six years later, actually debating whether the Bush White House has been manipulating the electoral system. For god’s sake — of course they have been. This administration was installed through crude manipulation of the rigged levers of power in the Bush family’s political machine and they see such outrageous conduct as perfectly legitimate. Indeed, I’m sure they believe “it’s not Machiavellian” to use the Department of Justice to rig the vote — it would be Machiavellian not to.

Update: Here’s a nice little update from 2005 on the Bourgeois Rioters.

Update II: And lest we forget, Tim Griffin, the houseboy Rove insisted replace the Arkansas US Attorney was on the Florida recount team. So was Kyle Sampson.

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Oh. My. God.

by digby

This one, from TBOGG, is only for bloggity, blog-blog obsessives, but for those of you who are aware of the Ann Althouse oeuvre: just – oh. my. god.

The message is clear. Don’t drink and vlog.

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Kissing The Ring

by digby

Speaking of James Dobson’s proclamation that Fred Thompson is not a Christian and therefore cannot be considered for the presidency, Andrew Sullivan says:

A religious test for public office – clearly stated by the GOP’s most powerful base figure. Catholics aren’t real Christians either, according to Dobson. Now maybe people will take the threat to secular politics seriously. Here’s the acid test: see if any of the other Republican candidates or a leading figure in the Bush administration attacks Dobson’s position. This is getting interesting.

I doubt very seriously if that will be necessary. Thompson will make a pilgrimage to one or more of the high priests and proclaim his hostility to activist judges and everybody will get along just fine. That’s how St John, Rudy and Newtie did it and matinee idol Fred has to do the same thing.

They will inevitably give dispensation to anyone who can win and exert their influence once they have someone in the white house. They know how to play power politics as well as any professional politicians. Better, actually.

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Republican On Paper

by digby

David Iglesias gave an interview with GQ today. He’s obviously quite disillusioned by what happened and is pulling no punches. Here’s one little bit I thought was interesting:

Are you at all interested in running for office some day?

No.

Had you ever been?

I was interested. Now, I cast a jaundiced eye towards the political process.

Because of the firing?

Oh sure. Yeah. Because if running for office means you’re willing to cheat, you’re willing to lie, you’re willing to slander people, then I’m not interested. And, frankly, I’ve got a practical matter. I’ve got four kids—all girls—so I’m going to have four weddings and four college educations in the next 15 years, and based on what members of Congress make…just do the math! It’s not very encouraging.

That’s a bit of a cop-out. It doesn’t have to be that way and usually isn’t — unless you are a modern Republican. He even says, in another part of the interview:

I’d heard that things had gotten more political under Bush from career people in Justice. My first assistant has been around since the Carter administration, and he told me that he’s never seen anything like this, that politics historically don’t play any role in our prosecutive decision-making.

But it hasn’t really sunk in yet.

Do you still consider yourself a Republican?

Yes.

Do you consider the people in the White House to be Republicans?

I think they’ve lost their way. They’ve lost their moral compass. On paper, we would probably be in agreement on most of the major issues, but in terms of actual practice and treating people fairly and respectfully and decently, I’ve lost my faith in our leadership.

In the interview he says that he’s against torture and that the justice department is the most political anyone can remember. He complains that the executive branch overreached because there was one party rule. But while this stuff was going on, the entire Republican establishment as well as a large number of the press and the entire base were not just supportive, they were ecstatically enthusiastically supportive. Bush was being lauded as a new Winston Churchill. Not everyone agreed, of course, but we were called traitors.

At some point you have to look past the leadership and ask why people were so willing to follow them over the cliff. It wasn’t the system that failed — it was every single Republican (like Iglesias) who looked the other way because their boy was on top and they wanted to be in the winners circle. Many of them knew that something was very wrong and yet they said nothing. They need to think about that.

It’s kind of sweet that he’s lost his faith in Bush and the boys, but it’s an illness that goes all the way to the bottom. All he has to do is look at those local fellow Republicans who proudly swiftboated him today to know that the Republican party is rotten to the core. And the “philosophy” itself,such as it is, is part of the problem — all that talk about responsibility and independence and rule of law are just talking points. This is about loyalty to a party which, when you strip all the marketing away, really exists solely as opposition to its enemy. They hate liberalism. Everything is in service to that single animating idea and has been for a long, long time.

When Iglesias failed to go after the enemy regardless of the evidence, he became that enemy. It didn’t matter how much he agreed with the party “on paper.” All that mattered was that he wasn’t loyal, period.

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New Mexico Swift Boats

by digby

Well it looks like the Rovian character assassins have decided it’s time to go after the US Attorneys. Here’s a new attack ad playing on New Mexico radio stations:

Former US Attorney David Iglesias wonders why he was fired. He says it was politics. Well, let’s look at the facts.

Iglesias brags he won a huge corruption case but he cut sweetheart deals with those involved and then lost 23 of 24 counts at trial (voices: NOT GUILTY!)

In 2004 3000 suspect voter registration forms turned up. But Iglesias did nothing even when a crack dealer was busted with them and even when political operatives took the fifth and refused to testify about their fraud. David Iglesias just looked the other way.

No wonder a criminal defense lawyer just praised him. He let her client walk.

While he looked the other way on fraud, Iglesias did prosecute a girl for putting bubble gum on a speeding ticket and he did find time to take dozens of taxpayer funded junkets around the world.

Meanwhile his own prosecutors criticized him and a former state supreme court judge publicly called him an ingrate.

Now Iglesias is even trying to play the race card.

David Iglesias. He still can’t figure out why he was fired.

C’mon David, isn’t it obvious?

This was put together by a group called New Mexicans For Honest Courts. (You can hear the ad at the web site.) They appear to have been around since 2004 and look to be one of those rightwing groups that have sprung up in states all over the country to protest “activist judges.” It’s hard to know where they got the money for this ad since it looks like they didn’t file a PAC report since July of 2006. Maybe some “angel” just came to town.

The message is clear. If you speak out against the family, you’ll get whacked.

H/T QW, via DKOS

Thumbsucking Gopers

by digby

The poor, little Republican boo-boos are all tuckered out with “scandal fatigue” since the Democrats took over five minutes ago:

Goodling’s announcement, some senior Republicans felt, strengthened the Democrats’ charge that the Justice Department had something to hide.

All of which added up to scandal fatigue inside the caucus, the senators said.

Specter’s appeal to the caucus received “a lot of head shaking, a lot of eye-rolling,” said one senator who attended and spoke on condition of anonymity because the session was private.

It’s been six long years of mindlessly rubber stamping that embarrassing excuse for a president and divvying up the spoils so they aren’t used to having to defend his miserable record of failure. Seems they don’t like it much. Well, those big macho conservatives had better toughen up right quick because this is only the beginning.

To shamelessly rework a famous movie speech written by Paddy Chayevsky:

That is the natural order of things today, Republicans! That is the atomic, subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And you have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and

YOU – WILL – ATONE!

Or, perhaps it’s better to put it this way: how can you expect the Republicans to defend this country if they can’t even defend their own Attorney General?

But that would be the essence of rightwing chickenhawkery, wouldn’t it? They’re all talk. Always have been.

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Still Wondering

by digby

Back in the day I wondered on this blog if Pat Tillman might have been fragged. (I was disabused of that when a reader reminded me that fragging was something that was done only to officers, so I stood corrected on the terminology.) But, I always wondered if he might have been killed on purpose because of this:

Interviews also show a side of Pat Tillman not widely known — a fiercely independent thinker who enlisted, fought and died in service to his country yet was critical of President Bush and opposed the war in Iraq, where he served a tour of duty. He was an avid reader whose interests ranged from history books on World War II and Winston Churchill to works of leftist Noam Chomsky, a favorite author.

I got some grief for saying it around the blogosphere and even among some of my commenters:

Guys, it’s sad that Pat Tilman is dead, and brutal that he was killed by friendly fire. Certainly the facts surrounding his death were covered up. But to use such slim evidence to jump to the conclusion that Tilman was murdered or “fragged” is pure paranoia. Get a grip. There are plenty of concrete problems for you to deal with.

Last night, Keith Olberman asked Pat Tillman’s mom about it:

OLBERMANN: Do you have clearly in your mind what you think happened in Afghanistan to your son? Not what they‘re saying, not what they told you the first time, not what they told you the second time, not what they told you the third time, not what they told you the umpteenth time, and not what they said yesterday. Can you go through this, because I don‘t want to leave any doubt in anybody‘s mind, what do you think happened and why to your son?

TILLMAN: I don‘t know. I think there‘s three scenarios possibly, and I‘d rather not get into them, but I really don‘t know what happened, because we have been told so many different things. I can‘t say that I really do know ultimately what happened to him.

OLBERMANN: But you have included among those three things the possibility that someone deliberately shot him?

TILLMAN: I‘m not excluding that.

OLBERMANN: OK.

TILLMAN: I don‘t think we can at this point.

I don’t know any more today than I did then. It was probably an accident that the government tried to cover up and then twist to make into a heroic tale for PR purposes. But I frankly still wouldn’t find it altogether surprising if it turned out that the most famous recruit in the Army might have been purposefully killed at that time if he was becoming radicalized. US triumphalism and arrogance was at its zenith and they thought they could get away with anything. Media manipulation and control was always thier first priority. (Jessica Lynch anyone?)

It’s an awful thought but this is an administration that says they believe Islamic terrorism is the most serious existential threat in human history, so much so that they must ignore or repudiate all constitutional protections, international treaties and common law that might inhibit them from conducting it however they choose. At the time Tillman was killed, they were fully engaged in a torture and indefinate detention regime, so let’s just say it’s not beyond the realm of imagination that they could go this far. I’m sure it sucks not to get the benefit of the doubt on something like this, but that’s the price you pay for thinking it’s a good idea to ignore civilized norms and base your strategy on appearing to be ruthless and mercilesss. People tend to lose faith in your decency and good intentions.

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Getting Warmer

by digby

Emptywheel’s at it again — she’s deep in the weeds and figures out the probable reason why Gonzales abruptly ended his press conference today:

If you click through and watch the video, you will see precisely what question got Abu Gonzales so scared he ran away: When did you approve the final list of USAs to be sacked? “It was sometime in the Fall of 2006,” Abu Gonzales answered, then showed Chicago the hand and walked away. It’s a curious answer and an equally curious moment to abandon the Press Conference. After all, as I pointed out just after the most recent document dump, the November 27 meeting, at which Abu G purportedly approved the list, does not answer the outstanding questions–not about the gap, and not about the decision to fire the USAs. Most importantly, that November 27 meeting still doesn’t explain how we go from wondering whether Harriet’s boss needs to approve the firings on November 15 (just as Bush left town for two weeks) to when the WH says “we’re a go” on December 4, just after Bush has returned to DC.

I had wondered the same thing. Do they actually think they can get away with saying that the gap is perfectly reasonable and pretending that the November 27th meeting answers the questions?

His dashing away at the press conference was just strange.

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Straight Talk In Neverland

by digby

On The Situation Room earlier today, St John McCain told us all to clap our hands:

(C&L has the video, here.)

BLITZER: Senator John McCain suggests that crackdown is already working.

I asked him about that in the last hour.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

BLITZER: Here’s what you told Bill Bennett on his radio show on Monday.

MCCAIN: Yes.

BLITZER: “There are neighborhoods in Baghdad where you and I could walk through those neighborhoods today.”

MCCAIN: Yes.

BLITZER: “The U.S. is beginning to succeed in Iraq.”

You know, everything we hear, that if you leave the so-called green zone, the international zone, and you go outside of that secure area, relatively speaking, you’re in trouble if you’re an American.

MCCAIN: You know, that’s why you ought to catch up on things, Wolf.

General Petraeus goes out there almost every day in an unarmed Humvee. You want to — I think you ought to catch up. You see, you are giving the old line of three months ago. I understand it. We certainly don’t get it through the filter of some of the media.

But I know for a fact of much of the success we’re experiencing, including the ability of Americans in many parts — not all. We’ve got a long, long way to go. We’ve only got two of the five brigades there — to go into some neighborhoods in Baghdad in a secure fashion.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

BLITZER: Senator John McCain, a Republican presidential candidate, speaking here in THE SITUATION ROOM within the past hour.

Let’s go live to Baghdad right now.

CNN’s Michael Ware is standing by — Michael, you’ve been there, what, for four years. You’re walking around Baghdad on a daily basis.

Has there been this improvement that Senator McCain is speaking about?

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I’d certainly like to bring Senator McCain up to speed, if he ever gives me the opportunity. And if I have any difficulty hearing you right now, Wolf, that’s because of the helicopter circling overhead and the gun battle that is blazing just a few blocks down the road.

Is Baghdad any safer?

Sectarian violence — one particular type of violence — is down. But none of the American generals here on the ground have anything like Senator McCain’s confidence.

I mean, Senator McCain’s credibility now on Iraq, which has been so solid to this point, has now been left out hanging to dry.

To suggest that there’s any neighborhood in this city where an American can walk freely is beyond ludicrous. I’d love Senator McCain to tell me where that neighborhood is and he and I can go for a stroll.

And to think that General David Petraeus travels this city in an unarmed Humvee. I mean in the hour since Senator McCain has said this, I’ve spoken to some military sources and there was laughter down the line. I mean, certainly, the general travels in a Humvee. There’s multiple Humvees around it, heavily armed. There’s attack helicopters, predator drones, sniper teams, all sorts of layers of protection.

So, no, Senator McCain is way off base on this one — Wolf.

[…]

Michael, when Senator McCain says that there are at least some areas of Baghdad where people can walk around and — whether it’s General Petraeus, the U.S. military commander, or others, are there at least some areas where you could emerge outside of the Green Zone, the international zone, where people can go out, go to a coffee shop, go to a restaurant, and simply take a stroll?

WARE: I can answer this very quickly, Wolf. No. No way on earth can a westerner, particularly an American, stroll any street of this capital of more than five million people.

I mean, if al Qaeda doesn’t get wind of you, or if one of the Sunni insurgent groups don’t descend upon you, or if someone doesn’t tip off a Shia militia, then the nearest criminal gang is just going to see dollar signs and scoop you up. Honestly, Wolf, you’d barely last 20 minutes out there.

I don’t know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad.

Ware went on to say that the Senate vote would help Al Qaeda (he’s an iconoclastic oddball) but I think his reporting is pretty clear. Baghdad remains hell on earth. John McCain is either delusional or lying.

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Imperial Life On The Potomac

by digby

Last night I noted that Monica Goodling, Alberto Gonzales’ senior counsel and white house liason graduated from Pat Robertson’s Regent Unicersity law school. Apparently, she did her undergraduate work at someplace known as Messiah University, so it’s pretty clear that this 33 year old is a dyed in the wool social conservative who was likely hired for that reason. Apparently, the Bush Emerald City hiring practices were more systemic than we thought: there are more than 150 graduates of Regent University serving in the Bush Administration

It sure does make you wonder about the ethical and moral instruction at these conservative Christian colleges, doesn’t it?

Update: Chris Hayes did a very interesting piece on Regent some time back for the American Prospect. Check it out, it’s fascinating:

At a school designed explicitly to produce influential professionals, worldview plays an especially crucial role; it is the bridge from inner spiritual beliefs to public action in the professional sphere. It’s for this reason that Regent’s professors are required to integrate “biblical principles” into every subject area, and it’s the reason that law students take a class their first year in the Christian foundations of law. Regent Law School Dean Jeffrey Brauch calls the result a “JD-plus.” Students take the standard canon of legal education — torts, property, constitutional law — but supplement discussions of what the law is with discussions of what the Bible and Christian tradition say the law should be, reading Leviticus, the Gospel of Matthew, and Thomas Aquinas alongside their case law. The same model extends throughout Regent’s nine schools, which offer courses like “Redemptive Cinema” and “Church-based Counseling Programs,” while infusing standard professional training with insights and injunctions from the Judeo-Christian (read: Christian) tradition.

I wonder what book in the Bible blesses vote rigging? Did Jesus preach that lying to is a good thing or that ruining someone’s reputation in order to cover up ethical misdeeds (and potential crimes) is godly? I hadn’t heard that. But then, I don’t share the conservative Christian “worldview” so what do I know about morality?

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