As you know, Congressman (and McCain campaign Arizona co-chair) Rick Renzi has been indicted on charges of "conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, extortion, insurance fraud, criminal forfeiture."
So as you contemplate the state in which the Bush-Cheney "administration" has left our Department of Justice, you might also want to keep the flip-side of their slow-poisoning of American justice in mind:
In September 2006, just weeks before pivotal Congressional midterm elections, Paul Charlton, US Attorney for Arizona, opened a preliminary investigation into Republican Representative Rick Renzi of the state's First Congressional District for an alleged pattern of corruption involving influence-peddling and land deals. Almost immediately, Charlton's name was added to a blacklist of federal prosecutors the White House wanted to force from their jobs. Charlton is someone "we should now consider pushing out," D. Kyle Sampson, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez's chief of staff, wrote to then White House Counsel Harriet Miers on September 13. In his previously safe Republican district, Renzi had barely held on in the election. On December 7, the White House demanded Charlton's resignation without offering him any explanation.
Stacks of internal Justice Department e-mails subpoenaed by Congress in early March from the White House provided evidence that the dismissals of Charlton and seven other US Attorneys was a political purge orchestrated to install "loyal Bushies," as Sampson called them, into their posts and to protect Republican lawmakers like Renzi from indictments for corruption.
You might also take a moment to wonder whether we'd ever have seen Renzi indicted at all, had it not been for the dogged pursuit by the new media of this story. And here, I speak most specifically of Josh Marshall.
Recall your traditional media's initial reading of the story:
It's all very suspicious-sounding. The provision smacks of a power-grab, an attempt to put a leash on federal prosecutors in the name of efficiency. It looks even worse when it turns out one of the "interim" US attorneys appointed by Alberto Gonzales is Tim Griffin, a veteran GOP operative who worked in Karl Rove's shop at the White House and as director of research (i.e., chief dirt digger) at the Republican National Committee. Not only that, but Griffin was appointed to be the USA in his home state of Arkansas, which can only mean he's being sent by Rove, armed with subpoena power, to dig up fresh dirt on the Clintons in time for the 2008 presidential campaign cycle.
Of course! It all makes perfect conspiratorial sense!
Except for one thing: in this case some liberals are seeing broad partisan conspiracies where none likely exist.
"I am so uninterested in the Democrats wanting Karl Rove, because it is so bad for them. Because it shows business as usual, tit for tat, vengeance."
Gosh. "Tit for tat." Where did we just see that mealy-mouthed excuse for shrinking from responsibility mentioned?
Alberto Gonzales should have been impeached. Instead, American punditry insisted this was nothing, and Congress satisfied itself with allowing Gonzales to move on to the lecture circuit, unsullied by the criminality that average Americans who have given up on the sycophantic media knew was plain to see.
Keep this in mind, won't you, while your traditional media and pundits fall all over themselves to get on TV to tell you that the McCain-Iseman issue is a "non-story?"
Another stark example of what Atrios always says is, "Our Stupid Discourse."
There's an entire professional corps of Serious Looking People whose job it is to tell you that your curiosity about what the people who run our government are doing is a "non-story."
How are you liking the results so far, folks?
Could this be why a million of you are reading this blog every day? Hmm?