Why Karl Rove Cared

[struggle4progress]

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, May 14, 2007; 1:02 PM

~snip~ Dan Eggen and Amy Goldstein write in today's Washington Post: ... ~snip~ "Rove, in particular, was preoccupied with pressing Gonzales and his aides about alleged voting problems in a handful of battleground states, according to testimony and documents. ~snip~

Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor wrote for McClatchy Newspapers on Friday: "Only weeks before last year's pivotal midterm elections, the White House urged the Justice Department to pursue voter-fraud allegations against Democrats in three battleground states, a high-ranking Justice official has told congressional investigators." ~snip~

Eric Lipton has more on Goodling in the New York Times. Among other things, he writes, Goodling "helped maintain lists of all the United States attorneys that graded their loyalty to the Bush administration, including work on past political campaigns, and noted if they were members of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/05/14/BL2007051400488.html

LBN thread on the Eggen-Goldstein article:
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x880271

[Demeter]

1. He Was Trying To Correct For His Error In Underestimating

how many votes would have to be stolen by the machines......to keep Congress!

[maddezmom]

2. vote counting and Rove

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, May 14, 2007; 1:02 PM

Why would Karl Rove want to fire a bunch of U.S. attorneys?

If you think it seems out of character, you don't know Rove -- or more precisely, you don't know the two sides of Rove. President Bush's powerful adviser is one part spreadsheet-carrying, vote-counting political wonk, and one part no-holds-barred, brass-knuckled political operative.


Vote-counting Rove knows that -- particularly in battleground states, where a few votes can make all the difference -- every little bit helps. Brass-knuckled Rove has energetically used government power to meet political ends.

Vote-counting Rove has long been obsessed by voter fraud, either because (according to him) it threatens the integrity of the elections process or because (according to his critics) it gives Republicans an excuse to pursue measures that suppress poor and minority turnout. They also disagree on whether fraud is widespread (Rove) or rare (his critics).

And it's not hard to believe that brass-knuckled Rove decided at some point that politically appointed federal prosecutors were important tools in his bag of tricks -- tools that occasionally needed a little sharpening, or replacement.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/05/14/BL2007051400488.html