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Posted on Thursday 24 April 2008


As one of the nation’s toughest prosecutors on corruption, Patrick J. Fitzgerald is viewed with icy suspicion at best among Chicago’s cigar-chomping, patronage-loving, backroom politicians. But prosecutors dropped a bombshell Wednesday at political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko’s corruption trial, suggesting some of Fitzgerald’s foes may have gone beyond mere grumbling about his hard-nosed approach.

They say a government witness claims Rezko discussed efforts among top Republicans, including former White House political director Karl Rove and GOP national committeeman Robert Kjellander, to have Fitzgerald fired to derail a corruption probe. That witness is Ali Ata, whom prosecutors want to be allowed to testify about his alleged 2004 conversations with Rezko. Ata, a former executive director of the Illinois Finance Authority, pleaded guilty Tuesday to tax fraud and lying to an FBI agent about Rezko’s role in getting Ata his state job.

"He had conversations with Mr. Rezko about the fact that Mr. Kjellander was working with Karl Rove to have Mr. Fitzgerald removed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Carrie Hamilton told U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve on Wednesday…
How many examples do we need to make this point? Inside the Bush Administration in general, the has been no distinction between the Republican Party and the United States Government. And inside the Republican Party, there has been no distinction between politics per se and what we used to call corruption. The distinguishing line traditionally drawn between the Law and ‘what  you can get away with‘ has become so blurred that it has become the accepted standard even outside the back rooms of the White House. So this story will have no lasting import because they decided they couldn’t get away with it [recall that Fitzgerald’s name graced the list of the potential firees in the U.S. Attorney scandal for a time].

Recall also Karl Rove’s recent letter to Dan Abrams. Abrams was accusing Rove of being involved in "getting" Alabama Governor Segelman. In five pages of venom, Karl Rove attacks Abrams – not for accusing him falsely – but for having no proof. In the Bush Administration, the standard has been lowered for behavior to "criminal behavior that can be proved and cannot be avoided by Executive Priviledge." This is not a very high standard.

What remains to be seen in November is whether these plummeting standards extend to the electorate. Will the machine be able to elect a doddering 70+ year old man who pledges to follow the lead of the most unpopular President in America’s story, continuing our history’s most expensive a least justifiable war, as our economy tanks under the weight of the Bush Administration’s incompetence?

Living, as I do, in one of the reddest counties in a red state, I hear the sounds of the machine constantly. Yesterday, a guy was saying, "Forget this alternative fuel stuff. We need to drill in Alaska. Those Arabs are out to to destroy us with oil prices. Why the Europeans are already buying up rights off of Cuba, to slant drill under the U.S. and get our oil resources." These are not the spontaneous musings of a retired golfer in the North Georgia mountains [I recall seeing him earlier this year with a Rush Limbaugh golf shirt]…

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