The Other Elephant in the Room

Obviously, the Libby commutation is taking up all of the oxygen in the room. But we have other Constitutional crises to follow, like the White House citing executive privilege in withholding documents and obstructing the investigation into the firing of 8 US Attorneys for nakedly political purposes. Patrick Leahy was willing to assert that he would cite contempt of Congress if the White House was not forthcoming with responding to the subpoenas. Of course, that would have to be carried out, paradoxically, by the US Attorney for DC, who I can assure you is a "loyal Bushie."

All of this points to the need for a special prosecutor in this case, because it involves the politicization of the entire Justice Department, and demands independent investigation. But considering what happened the last time a special prosecutor was established, that's not likely to happen.

Meanwhile, McClatchy gets to the heart of what this was all about: winning elections by intimidating and suppressing Democratic voters.

A New Mexico lawyer who pressed to oust U.S. Attorney David Iglesias was an officer of a nonprofit group that aided Republican candidates in 2006 by pushing for tougher voter identification laws. Iglesias, who was one of nine U.S. attorneys the administration fired last year, said that Albuquerque lawyer Patrick Rogers pressured him several times to bring voter fraud prosecutions where little evidence existed. Iglesias believes that he was fired in part because he failed to pursue such cases.

He described Rogers, who declined to discuss the exchanges, as "obsessed ... convinced there was massive voter fraud going on in this state, and I needed to do something to stop it."

Rogers was involved with the bogus front group American Center for Voting Rights, which over the past couple years has up and disappeared. They spearheaded a distinct strategy to lower Democratic vote totals in an effort to keep the House and Senate in Republican hands. It didn't work because the vote spread was so high not even they could cheat. But that doesn't mean they didn't try:

That strategy, which presidential adviser Karl Rove alluded to in an April 2006 speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association, sought to scrutinize voter registration records, win passage of tougher ID laws and challenge the legitimacy of voters considered likely to vote Democratic.

McClatchy Newspapers has found that this election strategy was active on at least three fronts:

Tax-exempt groups such as the American Center and the Lawyers Association were deployed in battleground states to press for restrictive ID laws and oversee balloting.

The Justice Department's Civil Rights Division turned traditional voting rights enforcement upside down with legal policies that narrowed rather than protected the rights of minorities.

The White House and the Justice Department encouraged selected U.S. attorneys to bring voter fraud prosecutions, despite studies showing that election fraud isn't a widespread problem.

It's legitimate to wonder why the GOP conceded so quickly the close elections in November 2006, which is totally and completely out of character for them, given these findings. They didn't want their criminal actions to be uncovered and so they gave up as fast as they could to cover their tracks. These tracks are slowly being exposed, and depsite the outrage over the Libby commutation, it's just as vital that this is seen through as well.