ROVE ON DEMS BEING PARTISAN? THAT'S LIKE TED BUNDY INDIGNANTLY ACCUSING SOMEONE OF HOMICIDE

By MANIFESTO JOE

Are the ides of March finally arriving for Karl Rove? Bush's "turd blossom" has led a charmed life for many years. But with the U.S. attorneys scandal now exploding, can it be that Doughface is about to, at long last, face the long knives?

I will present an excerpt here from a report from the McClatchy Newspapers Washington Bureau. The reporters were Margaret Talev and Marisa Taylor:

"... Allen Weh, the [New Mexico Republican] party chairman, said he complained in 2005 about then-U.S. Attorney David Iglesias [for New Mexico] to a White House liaison who worked for Rove and asked that he be removed. Weh said he followed up with Rove personally in late 2006 during a visit to the White House.

" 'Is anything ever going to happen to that guy?' Weh said he asked Rove at a White House holiday event that month.

" 'He's gone,' Rove said, according to Weh.

" 'I probably said something close to 'Hallelujah,' said Weh.

"Weh's account calls into question the Justice Department's stance that the recent decision to fire Iglesias and seven U.S. attorneys in other states was a personnel matter - made without White House intervention. Justice Department officials have said the White House's involvement was limited to approving a list of the U.S. attorneys after the Justice Department made the decision to fire them.

"Rove could not be reached Saturday, and the White House and the Justice Department had no immediate response.

" 'The facts speak for themselves,' Iglesias said, when he was told of Weh's account of his conversation with Rove."

With congressional subpoenas still in the works, it remains to be seen whether anything illegal was done. But what has come out, clearly, was that Iglesias and most of the other fired U.S. attorneys had been getting good job evaluations. They were fired because they weren't being cooperative right-wing Republican political hacks.

Iglesias wasn't bringing the right cases against Democrats, as he apparently learned under pressure from the GOP's U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici and U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, both of New Mexico. He was, he says, pressured to bring indictments against certain Democrats in time for the 2006 congressional elections. And he wasn't quite cooperating. (Our Republican moguls, of course, deny it all.)

But, back to Herr Rove. It's too bad that so many are focused on getting Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, a scummy enough right-winger himself, to step down, and not recognizing who the more experienced and enthusiastic hatchetman is here.

Herr Rove doesn't lack for chutzpah. Like other large rodents, he tries to spit like a puma when cornered. But the sound of him accusing congressional Democrats of playing partisan politics on this issue rises to a new level of absurdity. This sleazy man has built a lucrative career on character assassination, partisan dirty tricks and, arguably, electoral larceny.

Like other large rodents, Herr Rove has a talent for being able to find a secure spot in the woodpile when he needs to hide. But let's hope that this time he can't. And beyond him, the woodpile still needs plenty of cleaning. One can only hope that Scattergun Dick, and then Il Doofus himself, will be outed, too. Senator Leahy -- let's roll that wood. And get the rat poison ready.

MANIFESTO JOE IS AN UNDERGROUND WRITER LIVING IN TEXAS.