alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

May 22, 2007

A Couple of Loyal Bushies Sitting Around Spinning

by AltHippo @ 4:50 pm. Filed under US8

Froomkin:

Tim Grieve, in Salon, finds this fascinating and troubling e-mail chain:

“On March 3, [Justice Department spokesman Brian] Roehrkasse forwarded to his Justice Department colleagues a copy of a Washington Post story on the purge that he said was ‘far better than most recent Post stories on this subject.’ The piece minimized White House involvement in the purge; quoting sources, it said that the White House had approved the list of prosecutors to be fired only after ’senior Justice Department officials identified the prosecutors they believed were not doing enough to carry out President Bush’s policies on immigration, firearms and other issues.’ For the folks working the issue at the Department of Justice, that amounted to a victory. Deputy Attorney General Richard Hertling declared the Post’s piece ‘by far and away the best story I’ve seen on the subject’ and expressed relief that an accompanying Post editorial– ‘The Justice Department’s firing of a group of U.S. attorneys is neither as sinister as critics suggest nor as benign as the department would have you believe’ — was ‘not a bad beating, though against our interests.’

“‘Great work, Brian,’ [then-Gonzales chief of staff Kyle] Sampson said in an e-mail to group. ‘Kudos to you and the [deputy attorney general].’”

Looking back at the original story, the Justice Department spin was that the White House did not direct or plan the US Attorney Purge, but merely approved of it after all the Goody-Goodlings at Justice signed off on it.

As for the motivation for the purge, the Post story indicates that it was: “the concern raised by various members of Congress and law enforcement officials that some U.S. attorneys were not following Bush administration policies or federal sentencing rules, administration officials said.”

Isn’t that great? The Justice Department successfully spun the Washington Post. Just the way our founding fathers wanted the country to work. The Executive branch hatches a scheme to maintain Republican Party control of government through the placement of compliant US Attorneys. These attorneys then prosecute “voter fraud,” a rare infraction at the polls whose eradication requires purging voter rolls of likely Democrats. Then, and here’s where the rubber meets the Fourth Estate, the Justice Department spins the story to the Washington Post. The Post prints the spin as fact, and the Justice Department celebrates to a rousing chorus of “boys will be boys.”

US Attorneys aren’t the only ones with a compliant streak it turns out.

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