Alabama: the dangerous, third-world country that belongs to Karl Rove

in a current article in harper's, scott horton digs into our 22d state, the "heart of dixie," the stage from which karl rove began his foul career on the american scene and where, as horton so clearly shows, he still calls the shots...

“We have a Justice Department that has substantially been turned into a political arm of the White House,” Bruce Fein told the McClatchy Newspapers earlier this week. He went on to say that the public could have no confidence that federal prosecutions of Democrats by the Justice Department were fair. Mr. Fein is a conservative Republican lawyer and legal scholar of some note–the former senior legal analyst at the Heritage Foundation. As the Deputy Attorney General, he was responsible for the operational management of the Justice Department under President Ronald Reagan. Bruce Fein would not make such a charge lightly. He is speaking from knowledge, not conjecture.

[...]

Sometimes the White House has intervened to shut down or obstruct prosecutions of Republicans...

[...]

And then, still more troubling, there is White House intervention to persecute their political opponents: the telltale sign of tyranny.

[...]

Far, far more troubling still is the conviction of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman in a prosecution in Montgomery.

horton continues with the gory details...

[T]hat the prosecution was corruptly conceived and pursued and that the court proceedings were corrupted, almost from the outset: that is already extremely clear. This is not a prosecution of a political figure for corruption. It is a political vendetta, conceived, developed and pursued for a corrupt purpose.

here's where it REALLY gets interesting...

Dana Jill Simpson, a Republican lawyer who previously worked on a campaign against Siegelman, decided to blow the whistle.

[...]

The response to Simpson’s affidavit has been a series of brusque dismissive statements – all of them unsworn – from others who figured in the discussion and the federal prosecutor in the Siegelman case, who has now made a series of demonstrably false statements concerning the matter. She’s been smeared as “crazy” and as a “disgruntled contract bidder.” And something nastier: after her intention to speak became known, Simpson’s house was burned to the ground, and her car was driven off the road and totaled. Clearly, there are some very powerful people in Alabama who feel threatened. Her case starts to sound like a chapter out of John Grisham’s book The Pelican Brief. However, those who have dismissed Simpson are in for a very rude surprise. Her affidavit stands up on every point, and there is substantial evidence which will corroborate its details.

once again, as shocking as the revelations of house-burning and car-totaling are, nothing surprises me where karl rove is concerned...

there's plenty more in an article that exemplifies investigative journalism at its best, and exposes in glaring and factual details the ruthlessness of the man george w. bush so fondly calls "turd blossom..."

[UPDATE]

johann rightly points out in his comment that i neglected to include the key excerpt that explains why i wrote the post title to focus on karl rove... here 'tis...

The Siegelman prosecution was commenced as the result of a plan hatched between senior figures in the Alabama Republican Party and Karl Rove. This connection is not coincidental, because Rove was once fired by the first President Bush and then had to rehabilitate himself. Rove did this in spades, and the place where he worked his political magic was in Alabama. He put together a campaign to engineer the Alabama GOP’s capture of the state’s judicial machinery. It worked brilliantly. And Rove has retained tight connections with the Alabama GOP ever since. Rove and the Alabama GOP leaders set out to destroy Siegelman’s political career and thus smooth the path by which the Republican Party could secure and retain political control of the Alabama statehouse. It was crafted in such a way as to retard the ability of Democrats to raise money from campaign donors so that they might contest office in Alabama. Each of these purposes is “corrupt.” Key to this plan was the use of the machinery of the Department of Justice for its completion – involving the U.S. attorneys offices in Birmingham and Montgomery, and the Department of Justice in Washington. Rove was in a position to make this work and he did so.

sorry 'bout that...

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