The Sociopaths on Wall Street

The ideal corporation through most of the 20th century was one that pursued profits while being reasonably responsible toward workers, the community, and consumers. Since about the 1960s, corporations have also, at least in theory, been more responsible when coming to the environment.

However, since the 1980s—some would argue sooner—there has been a deterioration in corporate ethics in many sectors. Certainly the S & L crisis, the ethical failures of the Exxon Valdez episode and the deaths and lack of financial responsibility associated with the Union Carbide Bhopal disaster—all three occurred in the 1980s—makes it clear that the interpretation of deregulation in that era was far too often synonymous with ethical lapses in the executive suite. From the end of the Reagan era until the end of George W. Bush's time in office, the interpretation has only gotten worse. Actually, in very little time, deregulation went from a need to adjust regulations to make them fairer and more sensible to becoming an outright license to break the law and defraud people in various sectors of society.

There have always been lapses among corporation and there has been debate about how much or how little a corporation should do. There have also been corporations, all along, that cut corners in order to gain an advantage over other corporations. A general rule of thumb in business is that competent people can always make money as long as everybody plays by the same rules. Unfortunately, people who are not very honest or competent or both are generally the first to look for short cuts, including favors from politicians.

The reality is that both parties are susceptible to influence peddling. Unfortunately, Republicans have pretty much made deregulation, as well as other ethically challenged ideas, pillars of their political philosophy. In addition, if an ethically-challenged business executive makes enormous profits, many Republican politicians, are notoriously slow to recognize that there is a problem (e.g., Kenneth Lay and George W. Bush). The most telling sign is that when a rational and honest Republican prosecutor tries to uphold the law, that prosecutor may find himself without a political future in the Republican party.

One of the problems with today's business world is the number of ethically challenged people who are allowed to rise to the executive suite in the first place. In Bloomberg, William D. Cohan has an article that discusses a theory by Clive R. Boddy about Wall Street psychopaths:

Clive R. Boddy, most recently a professor at the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University, says psychopaths are the 1 percent of [people who] ... "lack a “conscience, have few emotions and display an inability to have any feelings, sympathy or empathy for other people.”

(snip)

He says [psychopaths] seem "to be unaffected" by the corporate collapses they cause. These psychopaths "present themselves as glibly unbothered by the chaos around them, unconcerned about those who have lost their jobs, savings and investments, and as lacking any regrets about what they have done. They cheerfully lie about their involvement in events, are very convincing in blaming others for what has happened..."

It worth recalling that John Dean has written a book called "Conservatives without Conscience." Dean was not talking specifically about psychopaths, and certainly not corporate psychopaths, who are basically a class of very smart criminals who are much more sophisticated than ordinary criminals without conscious (who in any case frequently end up in prison). But Dean was very much talking about people who are authoritarian by temperament. I would also add that people like Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush strike me as extraordinarily narcissistic and are clearly among the type of people Dean talks about. For both Bush and Gingrich, life is all about them.

But today's Republican party has other other problems as well. What is it about the Republican political class that they look the other way when a Republican politician obviously lies? And why is it that they refuse to set the record straight when others obviously lie about Barack Obama (birthers) or lie about John Kerry (swift boaters)? And why is it that the Republican political class failed to notice the obvious economic disaster we were heading for as Wall Street and the banks were allowed to engage in reckless behavior?




Here's the scholarly link to Boddy's paper.

And here's a link that provide a more accessible version to Boddy's paper.

Republican Con Job May Succeed

President George W. Bush is responsible for bailing out the banks and Wall Street. He was also responsible for the economic meltdown because of a laissez faire ideology that got out of hand during the real estate bubble. Fraud was being committed and Bush looked the other way. This is a fact and it's quite obvious that everyday Republicans aren't much interested in the facts these days. Hence, the economic crisis of the last three years (actually five, if we go back to Hurricane Katrina) is somehow being blamed on Obama. The same business types who created the crisis and cheered the laissez faire policies of Bush are handing hundreds of million dollars to Republican candidates who claim Obama handed billions of dollars to Wall Street and somehow caused our economic troubles.

Let's put it another way: Republican hypocrites who are railing against Wall Street are in fact being financed by Wall Street. Cute game, and Republicans may get away with it for the simple reason that millions of Americans can't be bothered by facts these days.

Here's another reality check: Obama might have pulled us out of the recession a bit faster if he had behaved more like a Democrat and less like a Republican. The idea that Obama is a socialist is essentially laughable. The healthcare reform bill, as an example, fell far short of what a proper healthcare program should do. In the meantime, Republicans kid themselves that health insurance companies actually care about the American people. Many executives of the big insurance companies have the equivalent of monopolies in their states and are not shy about milking Americans for the same type of fat corporate paychecks that both rank and file Democrats and Republicans complain about in reference to Wall Street. It doesn't matter where the insurance companies are located. They are Wall Street, listed by the brokers on Wall Street and are in cahoots with the ethically challenged individuals who seem to dominate Wall Street.

And Republicans are taking hundreds of millions of dollars from, you guessed it, Wall Street.

Republicans: Leading US to the 19th Century

These days Republicans in Washington aren't just conservative, they're outright reactionary. Now Republicans want to strip voters of some of their right by calling such a move a return to states rights. Eric Kleefeld of Talking Points Memo has the story:

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is calling for a strong re-assertion of states rights against Congress -- in the form of a Constitutional amendment to eliminate the direct popular election of Senators, and go back to the pre-17th Amendment setup of state legislatures appointing them.

It seems Republicans are launching a campaign to return to the late 19th century when the rich were filthy rich and pockets of the middle class found itself slipping into poverty and the really poor were living in slums in every corner of the land. One of the problems Republicans have with health care is that it's likely to ruin some cozy state monopolies that some insurers have thanks to their political friends. Keep in mind that history doesn't talk much about the late 19th century, a period dominated by Republicans and corruption as well as extremes of wealth and poverty (it got so bad that it took a Republican, Teddy Roosevelt, to clean it up).

Ironic how much today's Republican leaders talk about free enterprise while rigging the game in smoke-filled back rooms. Uh, isn't that one of the reasons the 17th amendment was passed? To take the selection of senators out of smoke-filled back rooms and give the choice to the people?

Democrats aren't perfect. No one should pretend they are. But our country is in bad need of reform. With Democrats, our nation has a chance of moving forward. With today's Republican politicians, we have none. Proof? With the backing of many Republicans currently in Congress, our nation went backward under George W. Bush. We can't afford more Republican failures.

The American Crisis Deepens

The Supreme Court decision that essentially gives corporations unlimited power through campaign spending is a danger to American democracy and a danger to every citizen. It is no joke.

I was tempted to title this post: The GOP Sells the United States to the Chinese Communist Party. The consequences of unlimited campaign spending by corporations means the person with the most money wins. Since anyone outside the United States can invest in our corporations, it will now be legal for the Chinese, Saudis and Russians to influence American elections. Even Osama bin Laden, if he uses enough corporate shells, can now influence American politics directly.

George W. Bush appointed two corporatist judges to the Supreme Court. If we're not careful, the legacy of the worst president in our nation's history will now be intact.

I expect many posts around the country to focus on today's judicial fiasco. Here's a post from Firedoglake:

If you had any doubt about the corruption that has infected the very bloodstream of American politics, look at today’s ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court said corporations can spend unlimited amounts to influence the outcome of elections.

(snip)

Teabaggers, do you get it now? You are outraged by your powerlessness. Can you now see the real source of that powerlessness? It is not government. Government has been turned into the handmaiden of the corporate oligarchs.

I’m compelled to repeat something else: I’m a fan of entrepreneurship and responsible capitalism. But it’s not the so-called heavy hand of government that is the enemy. It’s the corporate monopolists.

Here's a post from Kevin Drum who almost always has some of the most thoughtful posts:

I confess that I've become more sensitive to First Amendment concerns about the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law over the years. But treating corporations as mere "associations of citizens"? Color me skeptical. That's just not what they are, and this is a decision that we're probably going to live to regret. After all, it's not as if lack of ability for corporations to influence the political process has historically been a major problem in the United States.

I've been saying it for some time now and I'll say it again: something has to change.

Cheney and Other Republican Liars and Hypocrites

Since 2002, no government official lied about the war in Iraq more than Dick Cheney. In a different era, the vice president would have been impeached and sent packing. Cheney's outing of a CIA officer whose husband's factual report on Niger yellowcake disagreed with Cheney's self-serving fantasies should have been enough to send the vice president to jail. Dick Cheney's authoritarian and anti-social character has been on display repeatedly but in no case was it more obvious than when he shot a friend of his in the face with a shotgun and it was the friend who was obliged to apologize. Strange man, Dick Cheney.

I am proud to be yet another blog linking to Larry Wilkerson's article in The Washington Note:

...when Cheney claims that if President Obama stops "the Cheney method of interrogation and torture", the nation will be in danger, he is perverting the facts once again. But in a very ironic way.

My investigations have revealed to me--vividly and clearly--that once the Abu Ghraib photographs were made public in the Spring of 2004, the CIA, its contractors, and everyone else involved in administering "the Cheney methods of interrogation", simply shut down. Nada. Nothing. No torture or harsh techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator. Period. People were too frightened by what might happen to them if they continued.

What I am saying is that no torture or harsh interrogation techniques were employed by any U.S. interrogator for the entire second term of Cheney-Bush, 2005-2009.

(snip)

Likewise, what I have learned is that as the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002--well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion--its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa'ida.

(snip)

There in fact were no such contacts.

It's a national disgrace that right-wing Republicans continue to coddle such liars as Dick Cheney. But Cheney wasn't the only liar. We have to include such 'stalwart' Republicans as Donald Rumseld, Scooter Libby, Alberto Gonzalez, Douglas Feith, and yes, George W. Bush. There were plenty of others. The fact remains that the Bush Administration felt comfortable lying to Congress for eight years. But they didn't stop there. They lied to the American people.

Now Nancy Pelosi is accused of lying about what she was told by an administration that had little credibility. Our country needs a reliable non-political CIA but Bush and Cheney were doing everything they could to politicize parts of the government that had always been nonpolitical and bipartisan. As an example, the Bush Administration promoted people like Dusty Foggo to the number three spot at the CIA:

Foggo is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria after pleading guilty to a single count of fraud as part of a plea bargain. He is the highest ranking CIA officer ever to be convicted of a federal felony.

The fraud was part of a bribery ring that included Foggo's old friend, contractor Brent Wilkes, and former [Republican] Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, both of whom have been sentenced to years in prison.

Court papers filed this week offer the most detailed glimpse yet of Foggo's misconduct, which included getting his mistress hired to a $100,000 a year job at the CIA and steering millions of dollars in CIA contracts to Wilkes.

Even in the CIA there were people under Bush who were feeding at the public trough.

Again, most people in the intelligence community are competent professionals. But Bush and Cheney were not shy about bending the rules and finding people who would do the same. Here's another example of life under Bush by way of Talking Points Memo:

Adm. Mike McConnell came in as the Director of National Intelligence with a rep for being professional and non-partisan, a calling card the Bush Administration has put to its own uses.

(snip)

In his first months as DNI, McConnell did plenty to undermine that rep. He told Congress that three German terrorism suspects had been arrested due to intercepts made possible by the then-new Protect America Act when in fact they were obtained under the old FISA law. Soon after, McConnell offered a especially misleading account to Congress of a supposed FISA Court ruling that had delayed the U.S. from spying on the kidnappers of U.S. troops in Iraq. And throughout congressional debate on a surveillance law he claimed that the debate itself endangered American lives.

Then earlier this year, he suggested that a questioner at a public event at Johns Hopkins was "disappointed" that the U.S. hadn't suffered additional terrorist attacks. And now McConnell has really let lose, framing the Senate debate on the surveillance bill as being between those who think "we shouldn't have an Intelligence Community" and those who do. That has prompted a letter from Sen. Russ Feingold demanding an apology for those false characterizations of the debate.

There were other people besides McConnell who served at Bush's pleasure and thought nothing of lying to Congress. We know Cheney and others were liars. We know they lied to people like Pelosi. Until proven otherwise, I think we already know who the liars are. In the current political climate, Dick Cheney will never be prosecuted and sent to jail for his crimes. At the very least, he should go home and the news media should stop paying attention to a man who lied his way into a war our nation did not need.

Two Americas, Two Systems of Justice

George W. Bush just commutted Scooter Libby's sentence. There is one set of rules for powerful or wealthy Republicans and another set of rules for the rest of us. If Americans continue to put up with this, we lose our democracy and we lose our greatness.

President Bush is illegally using the government to increase the power of the Republican Party. He has started a war based on lies. He has broken treaties and laws. Bush and Cheney have flouted the US C0nstitution. Every Republican senator who continues to back George W. Bush is responsible for the disaster that is this presidency. Bush must be held accountable or precendence will be established for any number of undemocratic and authoritarian behavior by any future president regardless of whether they are Republican or Democrat.

Congress can restore order. Only a large number of obstructionist Republican senators are preventing the return to sanity. Democrats and and a handful of Republicans are making progress but Americans need to speak up loud and clear.

I Support the Troops and Oppose Bush's Fiasco

I support our troops and oppose Bush's reckless and arrogant war in Iraq. I'm tired of the way Bush's many and various reasons for war fall apart. And I'm tired of the latest mindless drivel from right wing Republicans that if we don't fight them there, they'll come here. That's an old line from emotional and baseless arguments that were used by the John Birchers of the Cold War era. During the Cold War, the John Birchers were considered the lunatic fringe by both Republicans and Democrats. Today's Republicans ought to know better.

Despite the hysterical shrillness of the American right, it is no contradiction to say I support the troops and oppose Bush's war in Iraq, and I'm tired of the deliberate distortion of such a simple and straightforward view. The right wingers even fail to note that an overwhelming majority of Americans, myself included, agreed with the necessity of dealing militarily with Afghanistan. But when did we begin accepting the nonsense of starting a second war, a war we obviously did not need, before finishing a war that needed to be finished in the first place? The bottom line is that George W. Bush must be held accountable by the legal means provided by the US Constitution. It is time.

Let me offer an analogy. Keeping in mind that no analogy is perfect, that their purpose is to illustrate a point rather than playing broad word games (Ah! You're really talking about 9/11! (actually no)), consider a crooked mayor of a major city. The mayor has financial reasons for wanting to replace the current city hall but he can't say that to the voters. He tries this and he tries that and the voters don't buy it and he has to be careful that he doesn't get in trouble with the voters, so he backs off. But he still wants a new city hall—with a his name on it—and plenty of contracts for his cronies.

Like I said, this mayor is not particularly honest and he comes up with the bright idea of moving his office to the Hilton because 'city hall is no longer safe: it is old and decrepit and a fire hazard.' Or so the mayor says. The critics take issue with the mayor; it's a perfectly fine building and maybe the critics concede an improvement or two may be necessary (aha! say the mayor friends, see, see!) but certainly not the complete replacement of city hall. The critics, despite the noise of the mayor's supporters, start making headway and the mayor gets nervous and comes up with another bright idea: he calls in his inner circle and he tells his henchmen to burn down the city hall during a parade when no one's looking too closely: the city will have no choice but to replace the city hall!

Now for all practical purposes, the mayor doesn't actually light the fire but he's the one who owns the box of matches. Anyway, the city hall's on fire and he's satisfied that his plan is moving along. He'll have the voters in his hands in no time. But his henchmen didn't know what they were doing. They made such a mess of burning down city hall, that nearby blocks are now on fire. It's a lot bigger fire than the mayor intended. The firemen, who have nothing to do with the mayor's crooked decision to burn down city hall, are doing their job. But it's such a huge fire that firemen are getting injured. Some are getting killed. And people are finding out that the mayor has been diverting funds for fire equipment and training. But the mayor's behind the firemen and when people start suspecting what a crook the mayor is, he tries to say that his critics don't support the firemen.... Bull.

It's a no brainer that people would support the firemen in such a situation. They're just doing their job and they're putting their lives on the line. But somebody started that fire and if you have your eyes open, it's not that hard to notice that the civilian guy in charge is responsible for the fire, and is a crook.

Bush is a crook. He started a fire in Iraq. The fire is a lot bigger than he ever thought it was going to be. He screwed up royally. Our troops are trying to put out the fire that Bush started and the incompetence and ideological rigidity and the budget cuts of the Bush Administration aren't helping our troops. A crook needs to be held accountable. Some argue that Bush is merely incompetent, and not a crook. But these days, not many Americans buy the argument that we can trust Bush, and they're just now beginning to realize that Bush is a lawbreaker and dishonest—I call him a crook, for short. That assessment has nothing to do with our troops. They're doing their job and putting their lives on the line. For all practical purposes, they've done their job and yet they're still on the line. Prolonging the war doesn't make sense. It's time for the Iraqis to put out their own fire. Yeah, we made a mess and we'll have to help them somewhat and no doubt we'll have no choice but to leave some troops nearby and even our air force and navy will have to keep flying overhead, but the Iraqis themselves have been adding fuel to the fire and now have some responsibility for the fire in Iraq. Keep in mind there are no good solutions to Iraq. That is an indication of how badly Bush and his neocons advisers have mucked things.

Congress doesn't have a lot of tools for making a president accountable for his mistakes, his lies, and his dishonesty once a war we did not need is launched. One of those tools happens to be funding. If you want to stop the killing of our soldiers, you have to stop doing the same thing over and over without purpose. And about the only way to do that is to get the president's attention by cutting off funding. There are plenty of ways to protect our troops as we draw down but funding a war whose purpose has been reduced to putting our troops on patrol so they can get shot at is not exactly good for our troops. Sending our troops on tour after tour is not good for our troops. Failing to train our troops is not good for our troops. It doesn't make sense.

Right wingers who say Democrats don't support the troops don't know what they're talking about. And Bush's continuing refusal to listen to the Iraq Study Group in a timely manner, say six months ago instead of six months from now, is inexcusable. Kicking the can down the road is not an acceptable policy. It would make more sense for Cheney and Bush to resign than allow Bush's war to drift for another 20 months in the hands of these two incompetent crooks who have botched things so badly we're now in the middle of a civil war.

And then there's the issue of that box of matches that Bush and Cheney are still holding. They've still got them. They're still capable of starting another war we don't need. Does any conservative at this late date believe another war will be 'supporting our troops'? Or are they just playing politics? Or both? I'm tired of the charade that Republicans know what they're talking about. We've had six years of Republican domination to find out that their philosophy, for what it is, isn't worth a pile a beans.

I repeat: I support the troops and I oppose Bush's fiasco in Iraq. We don't need more excuses and photo ops from Bush, we need accountability. If we are still a democracy, legal procedures must prevail. It's time for responsible Republicans to join Democrats instead of defending Bush. Congress can cut funding for Bush's war. Congress can continue investigations. Congress can appoint special prosecutors. And if these fail to hold Bush and Cheney accountable, there is always impeachment. But it's time to take care of business so our nation can move forward.

Returning to the Gilded Age: Wealth, Corruption, Cronyism, Institutionalized Privilege

The wealthy are different than the rest of us. Or so many of them believe. The wealthy are entitled to a different set of rules. Or so many of them believe. The wealthy are entitled to more wealth simply because they are already wealthy. Or so many of them believe. Paris the heiress certainly believes she's entitled to more wealth and a different set of rules. Poppa Bush and Junior never got it through their heads that they were born on third base. They have little idea what the rest of us live like. Some of Bush's wealthy Saudi friends even have a term for the rest of us: they call us 'donkeys,' though the term is usually applied to laborers and domestic workers. But it's not intended to be an endearing term (I worked for a sarcastic man once who liked to call his workers, 'you peons,' to their faces; he was clueless that his attitude and vocabulary were major factors in a strike that was more about respect than wages).

The wealthy these days have a large number of wannabes among right wing Republicans. One only has to look to Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff and the horde of neocons profiting off of Bush's war in Iraq. They are entitled. Simply for knowing people. Or so they believe. The Gilded Age has very much returned and it's getting worse. The corruption is becoming more obvious and unlike the Gilded Age, America is not the cutting edge of manufacturing and new ideas like it once was. Look at Toyota. It's now the world's biggest auto company. America is slipping and it's slipping because Republicans are out of ideas and are coddling wealthy people who no longer have anything to offer.

Truthout has a column by Paul Krugman of The New York Times on the new Gilded Age:

One of the distinctive features of the modern American right has been nostalgia for the late 19th century, with its minimal taxation, absence of regulation and reliance on faith-based charity rather than government social programs. Conservatives from Milton Friedman to Grover Norquist have portrayed the Gilded Age as a golden age, dismissing talk of the era's injustice and cruelty as a left-wing myth.

Well, in at least one respect, everything old is new again. Income inequality — which began rising at the same time that modern conservatism began gaining political power — is now fully back to Gilded Age levels.

(snip)

...according to estimates by the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, average tax rates on the richest 0.01 percent of Americans have been cut in half since 1970, while taxes on the middle class have risen. In particular, the unearned income of the wealthy - dividends and capital gains - is now taxed at a lower rate than the earned income of most middle-class families.

I don't have a problem with people making money with their capital but I do have a problem with unearned income being taxed less than earned income. Earned income is a reflection of our national strength; it is a reflection of our ideas and hard work. There are many people living off of unearned income who contribute very little to our society. I don't mind a tax break for the elderly and disabled who have unearned income but perpetuating such a system for generations turn us into something that has little to do with our democracy: a society for the benefit of aristocrats rather than the benefit of hardworking Americans.

We have a problem. Children without health insurance is not a myth. Seasonal workers like teachers who have no insurance in the summer is not a myth. Stagnant wages is not a myth. A lack of a real energy program is not a myth. Rising energy prices is not a myth. An economy shifting its jobs overseas is not a myth. The right wingers have nothing to offer and as long as the Republican Party allows itself to be dominated by right wingers and voters keep voting for them because of the irrelevant noise they make and games they play, the strength of America will continue to wane. John Edwards talks about these things with much clarity and thought. The mainstream media, of course, is stark raving mad as they argue about why Edwards hesitated to think, to actually think about his answer to the question about who he looks to for moral authority while a corrupt, incompetent and lying president in the White House drives our nation into the ditch. The Gilded Age too had its fools.

Carol Lam Outstanding Attorney of the Year

Republican Carol Lam is the one who prosecuted and convicted Rep. Duke Cunningham whose corruption and shennigans was uncovered by the conservative newspaper, San Diego Union Tribune (with later help from the North County Times). Cunningham was not working alone and apparently Carol Lam's investigations were getting too close for the comfort of the White House (there's a potential link to Dick Cheney, for example) and she was one of the attorneys fired after the November elections for purely political reasons.

Carol Lam's peers in San Diego, a largely Republican county, selected her as the outstanding attorney of the year; Truthout carries the story:

Carol Lam, one of eight former U.S. attorneys across the country whose dismissals have ignited a political firestorm and calls for the resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, has been named outstanding attorney of the year by the San Diego County Bar Association, the organization announced Wednesday afternoon.

(snip)

Lam, a senior vice president and legal counsel for Qualcomm, Inc., since February, said Wednesday that the award is "a great honor."

"I'd like to be accepting the award on behalf of the United States attorney's office," Lam said. "The attorneys in that office surely deserve it more than I do."

In a news release announcing the award for Lam and 10 other awards, the bar association said Lam "has demonstrated the highest level of ethics and professionalism and fought government corruption and corporate misdeeds."

While US attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president, it should be noted that there traditionally has been a fire wall between the activities of the US attorneys and the political arm of the White House. There has been no such firings on such a scale in recent decades.

The obvious interference of the White House in Dept. of Justice matters is currently being investigated by several committees in Congress. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales remains under a cloud of suspicion and discredit as he continues to refuse to provide an adequate explanation of why eight US attorneys were fired and seems unable to recall the circumstances of their firing. He has been asked by Congress to provide a full answer for the dozens of occassions he told them that he couldn't recall or didn't know specific details of the firings despite the fact that e-mails and testimony exist showing that the Attorney General was indeed involved. The scandals of the George W. Bush White House continue.

When Bush Presidency Flounders, Corruption Continues

Despite efforts by the Bush Administration to block investigations into criminal wrong-doing by possibly the most corrupt generation of Washington Republicans since the 1920s, the investigations continue. Bush has been standing on a phony pedestal made of cheap construction materials and he's now paying the price. Karl Rove can't hide the obvious cracks anymore no matter how many photo op games he plays or how much bunting he lays on to hide Bush's tottering pedestal and what's going on behind.

American Pundit reminds us that we are now up to 11 Republicans just by way of the Abramoff investigations:

So far, eleven (11) Republicans have pled guilty to charges of bribery and fraud in the Abramoff case.

(snip)

Last week, the FBI raided the home offices of two more Republican Congressmen: John Doolittle (R-Calif) and Rick Renzi (R-Ariz). They'd be searching Congressman Jerry Lewis' house as well, if Attorney General Gonzales hadn't fired US Attorney Carol Lam.

Former Congressional leader, Tom DeLay, who's a walking case of corruption all by himself, is now accusing Democrats of treason (sorry, pointing out an incompetent and flawed president and demanding accountability happens two or three times a year in corporate America; Bush, is after all the MBA president who never ran a successful corporation).

The reality is that DeLay never misses an opportunity to draw attention to himself with low blows. One of the scams that Jack Abramoff was involved in, apparently with the help of officials in the White House, was making it legal for sweatshop workers in Saipan to use the Made in USA label while avoiding US labor laws. Apparently, protecting the legitimacy of the Made in America label is for suckers, according to Tom DeLay who met with Jack Abramoff on the issue several times. Betraying the American worker seems to be a specialty of Republicans these days who wish to change the subject when their scams are exposed. There's no question that corrupt and authoritarian Republicans like Tom DeLay are going to braying loud between now and 2008 as a way to distract from the corruption and failures they have contributed to in recent years.

The Republicans will rebuild their party but let's hope they have the wisdom not use Newt Gingrich, Tom DeLay, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, Duke Cummingham, George W. Bush or the host of characters who have made a shambles of today's Republican Party.

More on Paul Wolfowitz and Alberto Gonzales

Four years ago, when I first started devoting considerable time to writing about Bush's flawed war plan for Iraq and the various wrongdoing that was coming to light, I was somewhat in despair because too many people writing about these things on the left were so shrill it was highly unlikely that they would get the attention of most Americans who very much needed to know about the nonsense that was becoming increasingly obvious. And the mainstream media was either drinking the Kool Aid like Judy Miller of The New York Times or they were shrugging as if they were watching some vaguely interesting but ultimately unimportant drama (Ted Koppel, as one example, though normally a very fine reporter was infuriating at times: it's a business, it's process, we have to make money, blah, blah, blah). Times have indeed changed. I don't know how much hope there is to change things but at least in 2007, as bad as things are, there is a glimmer of hope. When people begin to recognize we have a problem there is always a glimmer of hope because if you have the facts, there is a chance you can begin to change things for the better.

Indeed, things are bad and there are a growing number of people focusing on the catastrophe that is the Bush presidency. Frank Rich of The New York Times has an article (via Truthout) on some of this and, like me, he's now unavoidably using multiple adjectives and descriptive nouns that still aren't adequate for describing Bush and his presidency (bold emphasis mine):

...the president is also hobbled by the Iraq cancer's metastasis - the twin implosions of Alberto Gonzales and Paul Wolfowitz. Technically, both men have been pilloried for sins unrelated to the war. The attorney general has repeatedly been caught changing his story about the extent of his involvement in purging eight federal prosecutors. The Financial Times caught the former deputy secretary of defense turned World Bank president privately dictating the extravagant terms of a State Department sinecure for a crony (a k a romantic partner) that showers her with more take-home pay than Condoleezza Rice.

Yet each man's latest infractions, however serious, are mere misdemeanors next to their roles in the Iraq war. What's being lost in the Beltway uproar is the extent to which the lying, cronyism and arrogance showcased by the current scandals are of a piece with the lying, cronyism and arrogance that led to all the military funerals that Mr. Bush dares not attend. Having slept through the fraudulent selling of the war, Washington is still having trouble confronting the big picture of the Bush White House. Its dense web of deceit is the deliberate product of its amoral culture, not a haphazard potpourri of individual blunders.

In another article on Truthout, Elizabeth de la Vega, "a former federal prosecutor with over 20 years' experience, was a member of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Chief of the San Jose Branch of the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California," explains what's supposed to happen and why the Justice Department under Alberto Gonzalez and his White House handlers has become so dysfunctional and politicized:

Then there's the "Urgent Report" system instituted at DOJ in recent years. Section T3-18.200 of the US Attorney's Manual requires US attorneys' offices to send immediate reports to the highest levels of the Attorney General's Office whenever there are "major developments" - defined to include even procedural motions - in "important cases," which include any cases that present a "high likelihood of coverage in news media, or Congressional interest."

For cases involving public figures, the US Attorney's Manual requires that "appropriate officials, including the assistant attorney general for the Criminal Division, the associate attorney general, the deputy attorney general and the attorney general" be advised of the initiation of any case "in which public figures or entities are subjects of the investigation." Bottom line? The attorney general is notified immediately, not just when charges are brought in a public corruption case, but when the file is opened and every time that any activity, even procedural, occurs in the case. It was precisely such an Urgent Report that former San Diego US Attorney Carol Lam used to notify the Attorney General's Office on May 10, 2006 that search warrants were going to be conducted in the Randy "Duke" Cunningham case. The next day, of course, was when Alberto Gonzales's top aide wrote an email talking about the "very real problem we have right now" with Carol Lam.

Think about this for a moment. San Diego County is a generally conservative county, mostly Republican, with several Republican-leaning newspapers, including the San Diego Union Tribune, which broke the story on Duke Cunningham. The last time I looked most Republicans frown on bribery and corruption as much as anyone else, particularly when it is so blatant as it was in the case of Duke Cunningham. When Carol Lam, a Republican by the way, opened an investigation into Duke Cunningham, much of the evidence of corruption was already laid out by the newspapers. Opening the case and beginning the investigation was a no brainer and would be obvious in virtually any district in the nation where there is respect for the law. But Alberto Gonzales's top aide suddenly said they have a problem. If you're a criminal or trying to politicize everything, I suppose that would be one way of looking at it.

We Need Special Prosecutor to Babysit Bush His Last Two Years

Almost every day a new scandal breaks out that involves the Bush Administration. I can understand the arguments that impeachment is not politically viable in the current environment but it's clearly time for Congress to appoint a special prosecutor. It's apparent that Alberto Gonzales and the entire Justice Department are so utterly under the thrall of the White House that we can no longer expect an independent Justice Department to investigate wrong-doing by government officials since those same officials are often politically protected by the White House.

On Slate, Dahlia Lithwick points to a revelation at the Alberto Gonzales hearings that makes clear the integrity of the White House is at all-time low:

One of the finest moments comes when Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., busts out a big, big chart. Which happens after almost everyone has gone home. The chart compares the Clinton protocol for appropriate contacts between the White House and the DoJ on pending criminal cases with the Bush protocol. According to Whitehouse, the Clinton protocol authorized just four folks at the White House to chat with three folks at Justice. The chart had four boxes talking to three boxes. Out comes the Bush protocol, and now 417 different people at the White House have contacts about pending criminal cases with 30-some people at Justice. You can just see zillions of small boxes nattering back and forth. It seems that just about everyone in the White House, including the guys in the mailroom, had a vote on ongoing criminal matters.

It's not the job of the Justice Department to do the political bidding of the President; it is the job of the Justice Department to uphold the laws of this nation and to guard those laws with reasonable caution from political interference. The United States became a nation when King George III sought to subvert the law (he, the king, in his own estimation, being the law—or 'the Decider') for his own political ends. We should not forget that Benjamin Franklin threw in with the break from England after being deliberately humiliated by what amounted to a political lynching by the king's ministers and cronies. Respect for the law and putting those laws in writing with a document that outlined what the government could do and not do was what our country was founded on; deciding on a republic was simply part of how those laws were to be implemented, changed from time to time and respected without arbitrary change by those who are the most powerful.

Washington and the media can no longer avoid or make light of the fact that the White House over six years has repeatedly been violating hundreds of laws with impunity, and in some cases, the violations have occurred quite literally millions of times as in the illegal use of e-mails on Republican National Committee accounts as a way of avoiding legal requirements to keep track of government business from the White House—the people's business, mind you.

The New York Times has an editorial on the Alberto Gonzales hearings:

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had gone to the Senate yesterday to convince the world that he ought to be fired, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a better job, short of simply admitting the obvious: that the firing of eight United States attorneys was a partisan purge.

Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch.

I first used the word 'apparatchik' back in 2003 on the AOL message boards. I was criticized for being shrill which generally was not the case with most of my posts at the time. Since I was trying to reach moderates and perhaps even rational conservatives, I dropped the term though I felt it accurately described the political public relations types that seemed to be orchestrating so many press releases and conferences during that period. When The New York Times starts using such a term, we know, four years later, that there has been a sea change in how President Bush is viewed by a majority of Americans these days.

We have a crisis and the only proper way to deal with that crisis is to hold George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and many of the top Bush Administration advisers accountable. It's time for a special prosecutor—the blatant corruption at the top of the Justice Department makes that evident. Congress needs to appoint a special prosecutor who can begin to restore a sense of integrity where in fact it must exist: among those who are charged with upholding the law. What is apparent is that the US Attorneys who were fired, although they were all Republicans appointed by Bush, were largely fired for not doing the political bidding of an increasingly corrupt White House. It is time to recognize that we have a problem. Our democracy is bleeding. And Congress must act.

Alberto Gonzales: Mayberry Mafia Consiglieri, Part II

We are the most powerful nation in the world. The world looks to Washington for leadership. Or at least it did once upon a time. Whether Republican or Democrat, we would like to think that the best and the brightest are representing our nation and that there is real respect for the law. Our government is not perfect but there are standards and those standards are expected to be upheld and when they are not, there are supposed to be consequences, not just public relations moves before we see more of the same. Something is seriously wrong in Washington and most of it is visible in the White House. The best and the brightest do not appear to be members of the Bush Administration. The best and the brightest are clearly not leading in the White House. And the scandals and the corruption and the gross incompetence continue.

Alberto Gonzales is an embarrassment and should resign. His testimony today was so ridiculous it makes you cringe. TPM Muckraker has the full coverage (here's the link to this week's coverage: TPM Muckraker April 15 to April 21); there's truly not much to add. Congress is obligated to keep hammering at Alberto Gonzales and others of his top staffers until some satisfactory answers are forthcoming or resignations take place. The American people simply cannot afford the Department of Justice to become totally corrupt. This is scandal that comes straight out of the White House. Alberto Gonzales is doing the bidding of Karl Rove and the bidding of George W. Bush. It is embarrassing to our history. It is embarrassing to present this scandal to the world.

But the scandals go on. There's Paul Wolfowitz, his girlfriend and Wolfowitz's hypocritical assertion that he wants the World Bank to be free of corruption (selectively, no doubt, and to the advantage of the Bush and his friends, apparently). Maureen Dowd of the New York Times has this to say in her latest column:

The weekend meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were consumed with the question of how the bank chief could fight corruption while indulging in cronyism. Who could focus on a weak yen when you had a weak Wolfie with a strong yen for Shaha? In addition to the story about Paul Wolfowitz's giving his girlfriend, Shaha Ali Raza, a promotion and a $60,000 raise because he felt guilty that she had to be transferred from the World Bank to the State Department when he took over, the New York Times reported on Tuesday on more imperialist hanky-panky.

...when Wolfie was No. 2 at the Pentagon, the office of his consigliere, Douglas Feith, directed a private contractor to hire Riza, then at the World Bank, to spend a month traveling to Iraq to study ways to set up the new government.

(snip)

As they rushed to war, the neocons delighted in blowing off international institutions and diplomats, treating them as impediments and whiners. So it only made sense that Wolfie wouldn't hesitate to blow off rules he didn't like once he began running an international institution himself.

(snip)

Astonishingly, W., Wolfie, Dick Cheney and the Prince of Darkness himself, Richard Perle, have learned nothing from their mistakes of blindness and hubris, except to sweep them under the bed and indulge in more blindness and hubris.

(snip)

Shouldn't Rummy and Cheney have followed their own advice: You go to war against the country you have, not the one you imagine?

Hmm, that's not a bad last line but I would add one more: shouldn't we have a president who tackles real problems and not the ones he imagines? Of course, that would require a level of integrity the current occupant of the White House does not have.

Let's end by focusing once more on the Department of Justice, run by Bush yes-man, Alberto Gonzalez. Steve Soto of The Left Coaster provides the details:

It is a basic operating principle of Rovian political theory to cover up your own weaknesses and vulnerabilities by redirecting attention towards attacking your opponent on the same issues, and keeping that opponent on defense. We know pretty clearly now what this GOP mumbo-jumbo about voting fraud was all about. [Linked to the McClatchy Washington Bureau]:

For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.

This is the president who read speech after speech about bringing 'democracy' to the Middle East. This is not pretty and I take no pleasure in saying it. We have a liar in the White House. We have an incompetent in the White House. We have a rigid ideologue in the White House. We have a hypocrite in the White House. Quite clearly, we have a problem. The more Bush's shortcomings and failures become evident, the more Bush is compelled to wave his arms and talk arrogantly and belligerently about his authority as 'the Decider.' He is a failed president whose flaws become more evident every day. Congress, the media and the various members of our government must keep Bush in check and keep the government running until Bush is either impeached (I know, not likely) or until he leaves office. And Americans need to think long and hard about how a flawed man like George W. Bush became president in the first place.

Alberto Gonzales: Mayberry Mafia Consiglieri

Despite the fact that the Attorney General of the United States is a political appointee, the Attorney General is expected to uphold the laws of the United States and not bend them for political purposes. We know today's Republican leaders have nothing to run on and can only win by raising the most money, suppressing votes and smearing their opponents; that is too often the essence of today's Republican Party despite a rank and file who are generally honest and hardworking (though all too often, not particularly insightful about the nature of their leadership).

The firewall that is supposed to exist between the president and the attorney general has completely broken down. Alberto Gonzales is the consiglieri of George W. Bush and is quick to do the president's bidding even when it is against the law or not in the interest of the American people or our democracy.

The best source for the scandals coming out of the White House and Justice Department continue to be Talking Points Memo and TPM Muckraker. There are a number of others to read but I find myself returning repeatedly to Dan Froomkin of White House Watch who today has an incisive paragraph that summarizes Alberto Gonzales' current defense:

Judging from his prepared statement and his Washington Post op-ed, Gonzales will continue to insist that, while he doesn't really know why he fired the attorneys, he simply cannot believe that he did so for improper reasons.

Alberto Gonzales is either a fool who needs to be removed or a criminal who needs to be removed. I'm tired of playing guessing games with administration figures who suffer repeatedly from amnesia and outright stonewalling while things keep happening that stink to high heaven. I hope members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, feel the same way. It is time to act.

Bush Administration Literally Commits Millions of Crimes

For many decades, someone in the White House has had the responsibility to make sure records are preserved. Given the games that Richard Nixon played, a law was passed that required that presidents and their advisers keep track of their phone calls and correspondence. They are doing the public's business. There are times when a president conveniently claims executive privilege and that may fly or not, but on political matters there can be no executive privilege and there can be no such privilege when a White House official such as Karl Rove extensively uses e-mail accounts from the White House through the National Republican Committee (RNC). There are red flags all over the place on the issue. We know, for example, that convicted felon Jack Abramoff was using RNC accounts to discuss things with Rove's assistants at the White House.

The idea that Rove 'accidentally' lost his e-mails is just another cookie caper: "But I thought those were just old cookies in the cookie jar so I stored them by the trash can; I never imagined anyone would throw them out. I know what you're thinking! Honest, I didn't eat them! Anyway, the trash has already been taken so I can't possibly be guilty." Sure. Right. It's special prosecutor time.

Paul Kiel of TPM Muckraker has a transcript of a White House press briefing; here's the part I'd like to discuss a moment:

Dana Perino gave an explanation of sorts:

(snip)

I don't have a specific number for you. Again, I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million emails lost, but we'll see if we can get to you. If it was 5 million, I think that, again, out of 1,700 people using email every day, again, there was no intent to have lost them.

(snip)

Now, one of the things that occurred -- and we're also trying to figure out how many emails possibly could be sent by 1,700 employees on a daily basis. I don't know if the numbers are staggering. My inbox is staggering so -- we'll work to find that out. But there was a conversion sometime between 2002 and 2003 to convert people that were using Lotus Notes when we first arrived to Microsoft Outlook. And I know that the tech people worked to get us all transferred over. We had to save our Word documents and all to make sure that they weren't lost in that transition.

I don't have a specific number for you. Again, I wouldn't rule out that there were a potential 5 million emails lost, but we'll see if we can get to you. If it was 5 million, I think that, again, out of 1,700 people using email every day, again, there was no intent to have lost them.

Five million e-mails by 1700 employees is not all that much. Assume six years in office and 250 work days for each year; over six years, that's 1500 workdays. If each employee only writes 2 e-mails a day, that over five million. We actually could be talking about a much higher number.

But here's something to consider: there appears to have been no effort made to make sure the e-mails were preserved. Perino's story ignores the obvious problem: no one apparently bothered to make sure the White House and other officials were complying with the law. That in itself raises legal issues. Whoever is in charge of records keeping is in trouble. Whoever the White House counsel is who handles such matters (such as making sure staffers comply with the laws that apply to the White House) is in trouble (hey, does that include Alberto Gonzales again?).

The fact that RNC accounts outside the White House system existed can only be explained as an attempt to deceive Congress, various watchdog agencies and the American people. Across the board, including laws involving other matters, the number of laws that Bush and his advisers are breaking and the number of times they have been doing it is staggering. We must face the fact that criminality in the executive branch, particularly when political appointees such as Karl Rove are involved, is now extensive. Congress must act and the media needs to recognize we have a problem.

Karl Rove May Need Very Own Special Prosecutor

In scandal after scandal, Karl Rove's name keeps popping up. After repeated trips to the grand jury to explain himself, and a certain amount of jawboning, he managed to wriggle out of legal prosecution during the Leakgate investigation and we may now know why. Larry Johnson of No Quarter has some relevant details:

News that White House staffers, which includes Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, used RNC email accounts in order to avoid the scrutiny that normally comes with the White House email account raises an interesting question--Did Patrick Fitzgerald know this? It appears the answer is no.

If that is the case then we are looking at the potential for new obstruction of justice in the Valerie Plame case. Why? For starters there are the subpoenas the White House received in 2003. They were required to turn over all emails relating to the Valerie Plame case, not just White House emails. Just when you thought the Plame case was at a dead end it looks like the hubris of the Republicans have given it new life. ...

Josh Marshall has more details on what is clearly a growing scandal involving Karl Rove and other White House staffers violating the law to avoid accountability:

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) just sent a letter to Alberto Gonzales.... Waxman spoke to RNC Counsel Rob Kelner. According to Kelner, even after the RNC began saving Karl Rove's emails, in response to orders from Pat Fitzgerald, Rove himself apparently continued to delete the messages himself well into 2005.

White House officials are required by law to keep records of their calls and letters. These officials work for the American people and their records are public property; keeping records is a way to make sure there is transparency in our government. We need a much closer look at the shennigans of master political operator Karl Rove. A special prosecutor is in order.

Majority of American Say Gonzales Should Go

We need to believe in the integrity of our government and Bush and his closest advisers have given us far too many reasons in the last six years to believe that integrity has been put on a low priority for any number of reasons that are not pretty. I've been watching Purgegate closely for the past several weeks and Alberto Gonzales fits the cookie metaphor perfectly. Asked if he's taken cookies from the cookie jar, he smiles innocently into the camera with his hands behind his back, rocks from side to side and, while he denies having taking any cookies, a steady trickle of crumbs can be seen landing behind him on the floor as he tries to get rid of the evidence without entirely succeeding. In this case, the cookie crumbs are e-mails and contradictory accounts given by other people.

One of the ridiculous aspects coming out during this scandal are the number of people who have been hired openly or sometimes surreptiously by the Bush Administration who are not qualified for their jobs but are hired anyway because of their perceived loyalty to Bush and his right wing causes. We have lawyers being hired that are from fourth-rate schools such as Pat Robertson's college. But a more insiduous issue that has emerged is that the White House is deliberately using non-White House e-mail accounts to avoid accountability (one wonders how many e-mails went back and forth between convicted felon Jack Abramoff and the White House after all). If we care about the rule of law, if we care about the US Constitution, if we care about transparency from people who work for us, this is no way to run a government.

Since 2004, a growing number of Americans have been catching on to George W. Bush. The 2006 elections are evidence a loud and clear message to Washington that we expect better. But there are still Americans who don't get it. The Los Angeles Times has a poll on Alberto Gonzales and US attorney firings:

Most Americans believe Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales should resign because of the controversy over his office's firing of federal prosecutors, and a big majority want White House aides to testify under oath about the issue, the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg Poll has found.

The survey, conducted Thursday through Monday, found that 53% said Gonzales should step down because he claimed he had no role in the dismissals of eight U.S. attorneys last year — an account later contradicted by Justice Department documents and congressional testimony by his top assistant.

Senate and House Democratic leaders have asked White House aides to testify under oath about the firings, in part to answer questions about the roles of Gonzales and Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist. Bush has rejected those requests, but the poll found that 74% of the public believes his aides, including Rove, should comply.

Even among Republicans, 49% said they thought the aides should testify; 43% said they should not.

I'm astounded that 43% of Republicans still think it's okay for Justice of Department officials and White House staffers doing official government business not to testify under oath when serious questions have been raised about their performance. Ultimately, the American people determine the rules, not Bush and his advisers. It is the job of Bush and his advisers to execute the laws, not rewrite them at their convenience, or use them or not use them at their pleasure. When national security is involved, we sometimes are too slow to hold government officials accountable, but when pure politics is involved and officials are not being straight with the American people, we have a right and a responsibility to demand a complete explanation...under oath.

Officials who swear to uphold the US Constitution are expected to uphold the law and to have the highest integrity. There have been too many outright lies and contradictions coming out of the White House and Justice Department for them to hide behind 'executive privilege' or to invoke bizarre interpretations of the law that seem to be pulled out of the dark ages, or out of their hats. Fortunately, 74% of the public believes the officials should testify under oath. There's still hope for our democracy.

President's Integrity Increasingly AWOL

An example of integrity George W. Bush is not. Before leaving on his own recess/vacation, President Bush has once again abused the recess appointment provision to appoint another crony to a government position; Bush did not have the votes to get Fox approved by the Senate. Think Progress notes the AP story (bold emphasis mine):

AP reports:

“President Bush named Republican fundraiser Sam Fox as U.S. ambassador to Belgium on Wednesday, using a maneuver that allowed him to bypass Congress where Democrats had derailed Fox’s nomination. …

UPDATE: The White House originally said that it had pulled Fox because “his nomination would not have passed” the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Fox donated $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

While the phony swift boat ads were smearing John Kerry with false claims (with free help from the media who put the swift boaters on TV), Bush made noise in 2004 that a veteran like Senator Kerry should be honored for his service. Many suspected Bush of hypocrisy at the time. We now have the proof. Even Republican voters better start thinking long and hard about what minimal level of integrity they expect from politicians they elect to office.

NY Times Call Last Six Years: The Rovian Era

For many months now, the nation has been growing tired of the corruption coming out of the Republican leadership whether it's found in Congress or in multiple places in the Bush Administration. But the beat goes on and, for many Republicans, it's still business as usual. It appears, for example, that the main purpose of the firing of the US Attorneys was to stop ongoing investigations by US Attorneys who are honest Republicans appointed by Bush; apparently, the US Attorneys considered their obligation to uphold the law more important than being loyal to Bush and the Republican Party.

From the first day in office, the Bush inner circle has had trouble understanding the law, the US Constitution and the responsibilities of their jobs. And according to some pundits (not all Republicans, by the way), we're not even supposed to mention that Karl Rove has been leading the way on creative gimmicks to provide Republicans with a twenty year lock on power.

For a long time, The New York Times was among several major media outlets who gave President Bush a free pass. Since Judith Miller's WMD games were revealed, there has been a changing attitude. Here's Sunday's editorial from The New York Times:

Turn over a scandal in Washington these days and the chances are you’ll find Karl Rove. His tracks are everywhere: whether it’s helping to purge United States attorneys, coaching bureaucrats on how to spend taxpayers’ money to promote Republican candidates, hijacking the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives for partisan politics, or helping to organize a hit on the character of one of the first people to publicly reveal the twisting of intelligence reports on Iraq.

Whatever the immediate objective, Mr. Rove seems focused on one overarching goal: creating a permanent Republican majority, even if that means politicizing every aspect of the White House and subverting the governmental functions of the executive branch. This is not the Clinton administration’s permanent campaign. The Clinton people had difficulty distinguishing between the spin cycle of a campaign and the tone of governing. That seems quaint compared with the Bush administration’s far more menacing failure to distinguish the Republican Party from the government, or the state itself.

That first paragraph sounds familiar, though. Ah, somebody wrote this just a few days back:

In a number of scandals in Washington, Karl Rove has a knack of showing up one way or the other behind the scenes of the major players in each scandal. Just to name a few, Rove is linked to Leakgate (he was directly involved in the leaking), he's linked to Purgegate (he appears to have recommended that US attorneys be fired and one of his closest associates was called to replace a US attorney in Arkansas), he's linked to the lies that were told to sell the war in Iraq (he was a member of the White House Iraq Group whose job was to sell the war), he's linked to the swiftboating of John Kerry (some of the people involved had longtime associations with Rove) and he's linked to Jack Abramoff (actually a lot of Republicans are linked to Abramoff but Rove is linked in several ways, as is his former assistant Susan Ralston).

But I have to admit it's much more impressive when The New York Times says it. It says even conventional wisdom is running out of patience with Bush.

Justice, Texas Style...Er, Rove Style

The United States is not perfect but one of the things that tends to make us different from other countries is that the powerful do not automatically get a free pass. Lately, of course, it seems powerful Republicans have been getting so many free passes that they take for granted that they can do anything. There's Tom Delay, for example, whose arrogance got so out of control that he started saying things to people like, "I am the government." People that arrogant tend to be genuinely astonished when they're caught.

The powerful in Texas have always had a reputation of getting away with more nonsense than the powerful elsewhere in the United States. Karl Rove was in his element when he was helping Governor George W. Bush in Texas. However, Rove perfected his gamemanship in Texas and has applied his lessons in six years at the White House. Rove has learned his craft so well it's not certain he will ever be brought to justice. The fact that he emerged from Leakgate without being indicted has astonished everyone who cares about the rule of law. That's not a slam against Fitzgerald, that's just acknowledgement that Rove is very slick.

In a number of scandals in Washington, Karl Rove has a knack of showing up one way or the other behind the scenes of the major players in each scandal. Just to name a few, Rove is linked to Leakgate (he was directly involved in the leaking), he's linked to Purgegate (he appears to have recommended that US attorneys be fired and one of his closest associates was called to replace a US attorney in Arkansas), he's linked to the lies that were told to sell the war in Iraq (he was a member of the White House Iraq Group whose job was to sell the war), he's linked to the swiftboating of John Kerry (some of the people involved had longtime associations with Rove) and he's linked to Jack Abramoff (actually a lot of Republicans are linked to Abramoff but Rove is linked in several ways, as is his former assistant Susan Ralston).

I was busy last Friday and missed a post by Steve Soto of The Left Coaster (hat tip to Firedoglake for keeping the information alive):

While the Democrats are focused elsewhere, the Bush Administration is trying today to close off any future damage from the Jack Abramoff mess by tanking the government's case against former industry lobbyist and Interior Department deputy J. Steven Griles. In a court filing this morning, the Alberto Gonzales Justice Department will now allow Griles to plead simply to one count of obstruction of justice by lying to Congress. But Justice will also ask the court for only the minimum sentence for Griles, and will not demand that Griles cooperate with the government’s pursuit of others, including possibly Abramoff, Interior Secretary Gale Norton, GOP representative John Doolittle ☼, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and Grover Norquist. In essence, the Bush Justice Department is covering its tracks and eliminating any trail to the White House by scuttling this case and allowing Griles to walk away from cooperating with them on other investigations.

In fact, the Bush Administration is trying to bury the Abramoff case itself.

It was just this past January that Justice notified Griles that he was a target in the Abramoff case, and now the Bush Administration has moved to remove Griles as a possible problem for them in that case.

(snip)

What is also true is that DOJ has run the Abramoff case not from a regional office under a United States Attorney, but rather from headquarters using a revolving door of prosecutors and section chiefs, allowing one constant person to maintain control of the case through this turnover: Criminal Division head Alice Fisher, who has already been accused by Democrats of being an under experienced partisan hack (hat tip to Jane Hamsher). Fisher is now in a position through this turmoil and turnover beneath her to sink the Abramoff case and shut off the Griles problem for the White House while the Democrats are focused on the misdeeds at the district office level.

If the Democrats knew what they were doing today, they would note this action by Justice and immediately demand the appointment of a special counsel due to the obvious conflict of interest here. Of course Alberto would reject such a request, but 1) Democrats want Gonzales to do exactly that as a further nail in his coffin; and 2) Democrats need to signal to the federal judge that she shouldn't accept the government's self-serving plea offer here.

I suppose Karl Rove isn't in everything that is crooked in the Bush Administration but I suspect he's the one at risk if the Abramoff investigation goes too far. R. Jeffrey Smith of The Washington Post notes some curious instances of the White House avoiding using official channels to do business from the White House, political business; in other words, games they don't want the public to know about (hat tip again to Jame Hamsher of Firedoglake):

A Democratic House committee chairman yesterday told the Republican National Committee and the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign to retain copies of all e-mails sent or received by White House officials using e-mail accounts under their control, raising the political stakes in the congressional inquiry into U.S. attorneys' firings.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) said his broadly written request was based on evidence that White House officials -- particularly aides to top political adviser Karl Rove -- have used their politically related e-mail accounts to hide the conduct of official business regarding the prosecutor firings and other matters being investigated by Congress.

(snip)

Waxman noted for example that J. Scott Jennings, the White House deputy director of political affairs, used a "gwb43.com" e-mail account last August to discuss the replacement of the U.S. attorney for Arkansas, Bud Cummins, according to e-mails released to Congress by the White House.

Barry Jackson, a deputy to Rove, in 2003 used a "georgewbush.com" e-mail account to consult with Neil G. Volz, then an aide to lobbyist Jack Abramoff, about nominating one of Abramoff's Indian tribe clients for a Medal of Freedom, according to a copy of an e-mail. Abramoff is now serving a prison sentence for bank fraud, and Volz plead guilty to conspiracy charges last year.

Susan B. Ralston, while she was executive assistant to Rove, similarly used "georgewbush.com" and "rnchq.org" e-mail accounts to confer in 2001 and 2003 with Abramoff, her former boss, about matters of interest to Abramoff's clients.

In a related e-mail, an Abramoff aide said Ralston had warned that "it is better to not put this stuff in writing in [the White House] . . . email system because it might actually limit what they can do to help us, especially since there could be lawsuits, etc."

There's a stink coming from the White House that we can smell all the way out here in California. And there appears to be major damage control inside the White House and Justice Department of the kind that Congress needs to look at closely. Rove is involved. No one should have any doubt of that. I think we we're finally beginning to get some clues on how the no-bid contract system may have worked. That means Dick Cheney. There are signs that Cheney is also linked to the Cunningham scandal (take a peek over at Talking Points Memo). What a pair: Rove and Cheney. And an indulgent president.