robin hood zoro
2005-12-11 16:07:18 UTC
http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/11/Columns/A_whiff_of_Watergate_.shtml
A whiff of Watergate in the air
By MARTIN DYCKMAN, Times Columnist
One of the vital strengths of the United States is a Justice Department
that prides itself on being above politics.
No matter who's in power, the career people there do not check for
party labels when they're on the trail of crooks.
Neither, for the most part, do the politically appointed district
attorneys.
The Randy Cunningham indictment and the bloodhounds baying after Jack
Abramoff's congressional courtesans are in keeping with the integrity
that prevented the corrupt Spiro Agnew from becoming president at the
climax of Watergate.
But it bears remembering what elevated Watergate from a "third-rate
burglary" to an impeachable offense:
Richard Nixon's attempt to corrupt the Justice Department.
There's a whiff of Watergate in the air.
A rarely mentioned side trail in the Abramoff scandal leads across the
Pacific, where the acting U.S. attorney for Guam, Frederick A. Black,
was demoted a day after issuing a subpoena for lobbying contracts
between Abramoff and the Guam Superior Court.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the White House chose that moment -
coincidence, no doubt - to announce that Black was being replaced after
more than 10 years by a political appointee.
In being kicked downstairs, Black was also pulled off the Abramoff
case, which involved $324,000, laundered $9,000 at a time, to lobby
against a bill in Congress giving the Guam Supreme Court jurisdiction
over the superior court.
Why would judges spend so much over something so arcane?
Who might have subsidized them?
Whose strings might have fashioned the noose for the troublesome Mr.
Black?
Perhaps these questions will be answered by the FBI and Justice's
Office of Professional Responsibility, which are said to be on the
case.
It would not be the only recent instance of political pollution at
Justice.
The Washington Post has disclosed that the politicians there overruled
the career civil rights professionals in approving DeLay's 2003 Texas
chain saw massacre and Georgia's scheme (later blocked by a federal
judge) to require voters to buy identification cards that weren't for
sale anywhere in Atlanta.
In both cases, the career staffers said the states had not met their
burden under the Voting Rights Act to prove that the changes would not
erode the voting power of blacks and Hispanics.
A 73-page memo signed by six attorneys and two analysts charged not
only that DeLay's plot would dilute minority strength in two
congressional districts and eliminate several others where minority
votes mattered, but that his stooges in Texas knew it before they
passed the bill.
The result, which is being appealed, replaced five Democratic
congressmen with five Republicans in the 2004 election.
Had the department denied preclearance, as provided under the law in
states with histories of voting discrimination, the scheme could not
have gone into effect before a court upheld it.
The Post exposed the Texas tank job the morning after President Bush
thrilled a roomful of civil rights leaders, at a ceremony honoring Rosa
Parks, by announcing his support for extension of that and other voting
rights provisions that expire in 2007.
What they did not hear him say was to promise to obey or enforce them.
His administration's contempt for professional advice that conflicts
with its politics is provoking mass resignations and retirements from
the Civil Rights Division.
Nothing of the sort happened even under Nixon or Ronald Reagan.
____________________________________________________________
The Republican Culture of Corruption motors on.
Harry
(see all of Harry Hope's excellent posts as they break, put this link
in your browser, use it, this is a search on google groups, on the
author Harry Hope sorted by date... nothing fancy):
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=&start=0&scoring=d&enc_author=-nIhFBQAAACtBOUGAhN9cSve8yYdFJBuOPANdqfI6prRsqjc7uCt1A&
A whiff of Watergate in the air
By MARTIN DYCKMAN, Times Columnist
One of the vital strengths of the United States is a Justice Department
that prides itself on being above politics.
No matter who's in power, the career people there do not check for
party labels when they're on the trail of crooks.
Neither, for the most part, do the politically appointed district
attorneys.
The Randy Cunningham indictment and the bloodhounds baying after Jack
Abramoff's congressional courtesans are in keeping with the integrity
that prevented the corrupt Spiro Agnew from becoming president at the
climax of Watergate.
But it bears remembering what elevated Watergate from a "third-rate
burglary" to an impeachable offense:
Richard Nixon's attempt to corrupt the Justice Department.
There's a whiff of Watergate in the air.
A rarely mentioned side trail in the Abramoff scandal leads across the
Pacific, where the acting U.S. attorney for Guam, Frederick A. Black,
was demoted a day after issuing a subpoena for lobbying contracts
between Abramoff and the Guam Superior Court.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the White House chose that moment -
coincidence, no doubt - to announce that Black was being replaced after
more than 10 years by a political appointee.
In being kicked downstairs, Black was also pulled off the Abramoff
case, which involved $324,000, laundered $9,000 at a time, to lobby
against a bill in Congress giving the Guam Supreme Court jurisdiction
over the superior court.
Why would judges spend so much over something so arcane?
Who might have subsidized them?
Whose strings might have fashioned the noose for the troublesome Mr.
Black?
Perhaps these questions will be answered by the FBI and Justice's
Office of Professional Responsibility, which are said to be on the
case.
It would not be the only recent instance of political pollution at
Justice.
The Washington Post has disclosed that the politicians there overruled
the career civil rights professionals in approving DeLay's 2003 Texas
chain saw massacre and Georgia's scheme (later blocked by a federal
judge) to require voters to buy identification cards that weren't for
sale anywhere in Atlanta.
In both cases, the career staffers said the states had not met their
burden under the Voting Rights Act to prove that the changes would not
erode the voting power of blacks and Hispanics.
A 73-page memo signed by six attorneys and two analysts charged not
only that DeLay's plot would dilute minority strength in two
congressional districts and eliminate several others where minority
votes mattered, but that his stooges in Texas knew it before they
passed the bill.
The result, which is being appealed, replaced five Democratic
congressmen with five Republicans in the 2004 election.
Had the department denied preclearance, as provided under the law in
states with histories of voting discrimination, the scheme could not
have gone into effect before a court upheld it.
The Post exposed the Texas tank job the morning after President Bush
thrilled a roomful of civil rights leaders, at a ceremony honoring Rosa
Parks, by announcing his support for extension of that and other voting
rights provisions that expire in 2007.
What they did not hear him say was to promise to obey or enforce them.
His administration's contempt for professional advice that conflicts
with its politics is provoking mass resignations and retirements from
the Civil Rights Division.
Nothing of the sort happened even under Nixon or Ronald Reagan.
____________________________________________________________
The Republican Culture of Corruption motors on.
Harry
(see all of Harry Hope's excellent posts as they break, put this link
in your browser, use it, this is a search on google groups, on the
author Harry Hope sorted by date... nothing fancy):
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=&start=0&scoring=d&enc_author=-nIhFBQAAACtBOUGAhN9cSve8yYdFJBuOPANdqfI6prRsqjc7uCt1A&