Why Rove Resigned? To Grant the Administration Immunity

There have been a flurry of stories depicting the degree to which the Bush Administration has politicized … everything. McClatchy described how Treasury and Commerce were making decisions based on the political value for the Republican party. And today, the WaPo describes how Interior and Labor were doing the same. And based on interviews and documents, the WaPo describes the whole process as more systematic than anything before.

But Rove, who announced last week that he is resigning from the WhiteHouse at the end of August, pursued the goal far more systematicallythan his predecessors, according to interviews and documents reviewedby The Washington Post,enlisting political appointees at every level of government in apermanent campaign that was an integral part of his strategy toestablish Republican electoral dominance.

[snip]

Investigators, however, said the scale of Rove’s effort is far broaderthan previously revealed; they say that Rove’s team gave more than 100such briefings during the seven years of the Bush administration. Thepolitical sessions touched nearly all of the Cabinet departments and ahandful of smaller agencies that often had major roles in providinggrants, such as the White House office of drug policy and the StateDepartment’s Agency for International Development.

Well, so what? What are you going to do about Read more

Heffelfinger, Native Americans, and Voting Rights

I haven’t read all the coverage on Goodling’s confirmation of the reason behind Thomas Heffelfinger’s appearance on the firing list. But I’ve read a lot, and I’m really amazed by the coverage of the interchange. Goodling’s response to Ellison’s question about the reasons for Heffelfinger’s appearance on the list, Goodling said:

GOODLING:There were some concerns that he spent an extraordinary amountof time as the leader of the Native American Subcommittee of the AGACand put — clearly, people thought that that was important work, but Ithink there was some concern…

Goodling doesn’t specify what the problem with Heffelfinger’s NAIS involvement might be, so it could be any of several issues, including:

  • Resource issues
  • Gaming issues
  • Abramoff issues
  • Sovereignty issues
  • Cobell lawsuit
  • Voting rights
  • Violent crime

Yet all the reporting I’ve seen has portrayed this as a matter of Heffelfinger’s work against violent crime in the Native American community. To be fair, it is partly Heffelfinger’s fault:

When I hear some bureaucrat in Washington say I was working too hard to fight violent crime in Indian Country, I’m outraged

Still, did no one hear Ellison’s follow-up?

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