1 Boring Old Man

Congress and Iraq

So all of the Iraq maneuvering was merely for show to appease the antiwar left that elected Democrats. Ms. Pelosi couldn’t even deliver a majority of her own Members for the war spending bill, and she voted "no" herself. Thus she can claim to oppose the war but also sleep easily knowing that others voted to fund it. The troops will be funded because 194 Republicans joined 86 Democrats to support it. Two Republicans and 140 Democrats opposed it.

At least Majority Leader Reid voted for the bill, which passed 80-14 in the Senate. To his credit, so did Joe Biden. But the main story in that body was the "no" votes by Presidential candidates Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. The vote won them praise from the likes of MoveOn.org, which threatened not to support anyone who voted for the bill. "Senators Obama, Clinton and Dodd stood up and did the right thing–voting down the President’s war policy," said Eli Pariser, MoveOn’s executive director. "They’re showing real leadership toward ending the war, and MoveOn’s members are grateful. This bold stand . . . won’t soon be forgotten."

We hope he’s right about that last part. Here are three politicians bidding to be Commander in Chief, and they vote to undermine U.S. troops in the middle of a difficult mission, albeit knowing like Ms. Pelosi that their vote won’t determine policy. Mr. Dodd and Mrs. Clinton both voted for the Iraq War resolution in October 2002, which means that they were for the war when it was popular but are against it now that public opinion has changed.

The Troop Funding Trap

A confused Wall Street Journal editorial last week seemed to be addressing this question of how an elected representative might legitimately oppose a war in our democracy. It began by accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of cowardice. They "claim to oppose the war and want it to end, yet they refused to use their power of the purse to end it."

So there is a "power of the purse," you see. Congress can cut off funds for a war that people don’t like. In this connection, older readers might recall the Iran-contra affair, in which sources of money were found to keep the contra war going in Nicaragua without Congress’s even knowing about it. This met with the enthusiastic approval of the Wall Street Journal, even though funds you do not know about are hard to cut off.

But what happens if you, as a member of Congress, do attempt to use the power of the purse? Sens. Clinton, Obama and Chris Dodd (also running for president) voted against the final Iraq funding bill because all meaningful deadlines and timetables had been stripped out so that President Bush would sign it. That Wall Street Journal editorial accuses these three Democratic senators of "vot[ing] to undermine U.S. troops in the middle of a difficult mission." If this is true of last week’s vote, it will always be true of any attempt to cut off a war by cutting off funds. Unless the Journal is in favor of undermining U.S. troops, this makes the alleged "power of the purse" unusable.

Advocates of the current war who enjoy the spectacle of war opponents caught in this trap of laws and logic had better hope that every military action a president chooses to engage in from here on out is as wonderful to them as is the war in Iraq. Because there is nothing war-specific about this line of argument. It would work just as well on an invasion of Canada or an aerial bombardment of Portugal. The president can do it if he wants to, and no one can legitimately stop him.

Of course, the president is elected, and in that sense he is acting as proxy for the citizens when he decides to take our country into a war. Right? Well, not quite. Let’s leave aside the voting anomalies of the 2000 election. When this president first ran for national office, he campaigned on a platform of criticizing his predecessor for engaging in military action (in Kosovo and Somalia) without an exit strategy. He mocked the notion of trying to establish democracy in distant lands. He denounced the use of American soldiers for "nation-building." In 2000, if you were looking for a way to express your disapproval of the policies and prejudices that later got us into Iraq, your obvious answer would have been to vote for George W. Bush.

Calling John Ashcroft

The House and Senate Intelligence Committees have asked the former attorney general to testify about his role in a dramatic showdown over a controversial eavesdropping program. Will he play ball?

The Senate and House Intelligence Committees are asking former attorney general John Ashcroft to testify about a March 2004 hospital-room confrontation during which he refused to sign off on a continuation of President Bush’s warrantless eavesdropping program, according to congressional and administration sources.

The sources, who asked not to identified talking about sensitive matters, said the Senate Intelligence Committee has tentatively scheduled a closed-door hearing for later this month. The panel plans to question Ashcroft, his former chief of staff David Ayres and former deputy attorney general James Comey about a heated dispute with the White House that roiled the Justice Department three years ago. The House committee is also planning a separate closed-door hearing with Ashcroft, according to a spokeswoman for Ashcroft.

The requests for Ashcroft’s testimony reflect the mounting frustration on the part of committee leaders in both chambers who feel they have been denied vital information about the wiretapping issue by the Bush administration. Despite having received numerous private briefings from senior administration officials over the last year, members were stunned to learn just how deeply troubled the Justice Department was about aspects of the program—a glimpse they got only when Comey publicly testified about the program at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing last month.

The invitation from Capitol Hill could also create a dilemma for Ashcroft, who prides himself on his loyalty to President Bush—despite clear tensions that arose with the White House over wiretapping and other issues related to the war on terror. Ashcroft, 65, now a Washington lobbyist, has steadfastly refused to make any public comment about the eavesdropping dispute. While confirming the House request, his spokeswoman, Juleanna Glover Weiss, said he was out of town and would be unavailable to discuss the matter until next week.

I kind of hope so. I don’t much like Isikoff’s phrase, "Will he play ball." It sounds like, "Will he turn against Bush and join up with the Democrats." That’s an absurd request. For example, James Comey, the man who told this story, is a principled Conservative. The key is "principled." So I don’t want Ashcroft to "play ball," I just want him to tell the truth. This country needs principled Conservatives. What we don’t need is unprincipled. inept know-it-all’s, which we have in great abundance. Comey winced at being the "darling of the Left." That’s part of the Bush craziness. I am a Liberal person. No question about it. But that’s not what drove me to be so rabid about this Administration. The thing that got me so riled up, is that I’m a Patriot. I actually believe in our form of government in spite of its flaws. I actually believe in checks and balances, and the Bill of Rights, and Separation of Church and State.

So, I hope John Ashcroft does testify, and tells the truth. I think he might possibly be a Patriot. I promise, he’ll never be the darling of the Left. On the other hand, he has a chance to show us that there are people we can respect on the Right. We’ve had more than enough of the alternative…

Question: Can we find some disincentives for Cheney to remain on this course of insanity? I really like this idea of creating disincentives for the Bushies. Disincentives..that’s deterrants to us common folk.

An Answer: Disincentives, Deterrants, Negative Consequences, etc. are the natural and normal methods that parents use the point kids in the right direction. It just makes intuitive sense that if you want to move people in a certain direction, you make the correct direction pleasurable, and the alternative aversive. Parents do such things with reward/punishment schemes, but more often by first occupying a position of respect, then shaping behavior by subtle changes in parental approval levels. There are two kinds of authority. The first is the authority of power, like that of a Major over a Seargant [delegated authority] as in "by the authority invested in me by the…" The second kind is the authority of expertise, as in "Einstein was an authority in the field of…" I guess that’s why authority is derived from the word author. The optimal kind of authority is the second kind [backed up by an ability to use the first kind when necessary], as in "speak softly, but carry a big stick." Teddy Roosevelt said it in a speech when he was Vice President in 1901, a few weeks before President William McKinley was assassinated and Roosevelt became our youngest President ever:

Right here let me make as vigorous a plea as I know how in favor of saying nothing that we do not mean, and of acting without hesitation up to whatever we say. A good many of you are probably acquainted with the old proverb, “Speak softly and carry a big stick – you will go far.” If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble, and neither will speaking softly avail, if back of the softness there does not lie strength, power. In private life there are few beings more obnoxious than the man who is always loudly boasting, and if the boaster is not prepared to back up his words, his position becomes absolutely contemptible. So it is with the nation. It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and, above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples. Whenever on any point we come in contact with a foreign power, I hope that we shall always strive to speak courteously and respectfully of that foreign power.

Both Bush and Cheney are examples of people surely raised this way. They are like that kind of parent themselves – their motives are rarely clearly stated, often disguised. When they want something, it’s decided in secret and then they begin to develop a strategy to get what they want. There is no speech without a hidden agenda, and they sure don’t speak softly. They reflexly balk at any attempt to shape their behavior, while they strategize how to shape the world’s. They respect no authority [U.N., Geneva Convention, Congress], and exercise only authority of the first kind – power, delegated authority, "I’m the Decider," Executive Privilege, Unitary Executive. So like similar types, Hussein for example, they "speak loudly, whether they carry a big stick or not." Disincentives would be discounted out of hand much as they discount the withdrawal of approval by the electorate. They immediately question motives – "Liberal Media," "tired of war," etc. They miss the point of Teddy Roosevelt’s speech in every dimension. So the tragedy of this Administration is that it cannot be "shaped."

I don’t miss the point of the question. It’s a perfectly reasonable thing to say, and try, were we dealing with reasonable people. Unfortunately, they are not reason-able. They see "reason" as a "strategy" to undermine their power, and any approach to change their direction as a trick. The massive irony of all of this is that "regime change," their Mantra for Hussein, is the only rational response. And I hope we do better planning for what follows than they did in Iraq. Countries coming out from under a crazy government go crazy when that regime falls. It’s one reason to think long and hard about the Democratic Nominee. We need someone who can respond to how really nuts this country is going to be after Bush and Cheney.

We need a Teddy Roosevelt…

Rice Insists Cheney Supports Diplomacy for Iran

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday that Vice President Cheney fully supports a diplomatic course over Iran’s nuclear program, denying impressions of divisions among President Bush’s foreign-policy advisers.

"The president of the United States has made very clear what our policy is. That policy is supported by all of the members of his cabinet — and by the vice president of the United States," Rice said at a news conference here after talks with Spanish officials. "The president has made clear that we are on a course that is a diplomatic course, but it is a diplomatic course backed up by disincentives for Iran to continue its activities."

Rice was responding to remarks made by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ElBaradei told BBC Radio that the world risked a war in Iran because of "new crazies who say ‘let’s go and bomb Iran.’ "

Asked who the "new crazies" were, ElBaradei replied: "Those who have extreme views and say the only solution is to impose your will by force."

Cheney, a major advocate of war with Iraq, is regarded as a hawk on Iran and recently made a tough speech denouncing the Islamic Republic from the deck of an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf. As secretary of state, Rice has had much more freedom in setting the diplomatic course than her predecessor, Colin L. Powell. But Iran has not responded positively to an offer she made a year ago to join negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, leading some conservatives to argue that her approach has only allowed Iran to gain nuclear expertise.

Condi is easy to forget these days. My fantasy is that she’s moving around the globe to avoid being subpoenaed by the Congressional Committees. But as to her comments about being supported by Dick Cheney, tell it to the Marines. They continue to talk like they are a real government with some kind of plan. That’s simply not believable. I think all of them except Cheney are faking it – moving from Talking Point to Talking Point with little else going on. And as for Cheney, he’s nuts. They’ve avoided diplomacy with Iran for six and a half years. When somebody finally came to the table last week, our guy came out with some kind of pseudo-tough talk. I don’t think they know what diplomacy is. I can’t recall a single diplomatic moment from the time Bush took office. They deal with others the same way they deal with us – tell us how they want things to be, and that’s it. We’re stuck with them and have to put up with it for another 598 days. Other people can just walk away…

In the things I read, it’s widely assumed that Karl Rove is adept at voter manipulation, and that he has influenced elections in a variety of ways throughout his career. But the mechanism and the machinery required has been obscure, at least to me. Comes now the U.S. Attorney Scandal, and we’re suddenly given a window into the inner·sanctum – how it all seems to work [and it does work, that part is painfully clear].

Political Profiling

How in the world would controlling the Federal Prosecutors fit into an electioneering initiative? The was hardly apparent to me before all of this. The first hint came from an unlikely source – Andrew Sullivan, a Conservative Blogger [with a conscience] for the Atlantic Monthly. He reported on a study of political profiling by the DoJ in their corruption prosecutions. 

Here’s a summary of the results from that preliminary study by Shields and Cragan:

And their comments:

• ^{Political profiling makes Democratic officials look like they are more corrupt than Republicans, just as racial minorities are made to look more corrupt than whites by the practice of racial profiling by law enforcement agencies. However, the data on state-wide, U.S. Congress, and U.S. Senate elected officials do not support this claim.}
• ^{Political profiling of local Democratic elected officials attacks the party at the very grassroots essence of its personality. Each local case of reported or insinuated corruption by the federal authorities eats at and saps the local Democrat’s energy to be the grassroots leader of the party and drains his or her resources in defense against the comparative unlimited resources of the federal government.}
• ^{Political profiling discredits each candidate’s persona as a viable leader of and spokesperson for the local Democratic party.}
• ^{Political profiling weakens the candidate’s ability to raise monies for themselves when seeking re-election and negates their ability to raise money for other democratic candidates.}
• ^{By keeping political profiling at the local level — in this way the story is most likely not to be viewed nationally — it makes it harder for reporters to connect the dots between corruption investigations in say Atlanta, Chicago, Las Vegas, or Philadelphia let alone towns like Carson, Colton, East Point, or Escambia, or counties like Cherokee, Harrison, Hudson, or Lake. Each local report of a corruption investigation appears as only an isolated incident rather than as a central example of a broader pattern created by the Bush Justice Department’s unethical practice of political profiling.}

We’ve seen this in action in this scandal, notably Steve Biskupic [Wisconsin] Prosecution of Georgia Thompson and David Iglesias [New Mexico] fired for refusing to prosecute Democratic Officials.

Scandal Damage Control

I could’ve called this Protecting Corrupt Republicans, but I think that’s not the motive. Karl Rove has said over and over that they lost in 2006 because of all the scandals, the one he focuses on is Mark Foley [then there was Jack Abramoff, Duke Cunningham, Ralph Reed, Bob Ney, etc.]. Certainly, there are examples of that kind of interference with investigations in this U.S. Attorney Firing Scandal – Carol Lam [more Abramoff, Kyle Foggo, Brent Wilkes] and  Debra Yang Wong [Jerry Lewis D-CA]. And, of course, there’s the C.I.A. Leak Investigation that Karl Rove couldn’t control, thanks to James Comey and Patrick Fitzgerald.

Voter Fraud Investigations

This one’s the hardest for me to get my mind around. Rove is obsessed with pushing "voter fraud" investigations. The Republicans alledge that the Domocrats have registered untold numbers of inelgible or non-existent people. McClatchie has a good summary. Here‘s the National Republican Lawyers Association view, paralleling the speech Rove made there last year [written in the same condescending style William Kristol uses defending the government’s neoconservatives].  Whatever their rationale, this is a huge deal with the Republican Electioneers, prosecuting "voter fraud cases." It’s part of a broad strategy to purge the election role of Democratic voters – mostly minorities of one kind or another.  It’s a companion piece to microtargeting and caging. Many of the fired Attorneys refused to press these voter fraud cases at a rate suiting the Administration.

Power

But there’s more. U.S. Attorneys oversee the election process itself. If there’s something fishy, they’re the ones to do something about it. If there’s something contested, they’re involved in investigating it. They have a lot of control over the elections, and I expect that’s the main motive in all of this. Rove’s big guns – Monica Goodling, Sara Taylor, Tim Griffin, Bernard Schlozman, etc. are all involved, and they’re all veterans of the Republican "opposition research" ranks. They’re part of the DoJ initiative for reasons, not all of which are apparent to us as of yet.

But, speaking of power, there’s a piece of this that’s so big, we almost don’t see it. All of the Administration’s problems have something to do with the DoJ. They started with John Ashcroft, a definite Christian Conservative, Law and Order nut. But even he gave them problems. We’ve recently heard James Comey’s testimony about the attempt to get the N.S.A. Domestic Spying authorized on Ashcroft’s sickbed. In the brief time Comey was acting Attorney General, he stonewalled them on the N.S.A. issue and appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as Special Prosecutor. Big trouble! They got rid of both Ashcroft and Comey, putting Alberto Gonzales, a "yes man" of the first magnitude, in place. So, by controlling the DoJ and the U.S. Attorneys, they control "The Law" itself. That’s obviously what they want.

But, to be honest, the reason I’m writing this is an uncanny feeling that we’re missing something. They gave the okay to go with the firings after they knew they’d lost the mid-term elections. That was risky business, and ultimately, it’s going to cost them the DoJ. There must’ve been a big pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. I’m just not sure we’ve figured out what it was. I hate hunches. They just sit in there and niggle…

It’s official

The U.S. Justice Department has notified Arkansas’s congressional delegation that Interim Eastern District U.S. Attorney Tim Griffin is resigning effective Friday, June 1. Jane Duke will become acting U.S. attorney. (This is the assistant in the office who the Justice Department once had said had to be passed over as an interim appointee because of her pregnancy. Since it’s illegal to discriminate on account of pregnancy, Justice had to back off this statement.)

Still no word from the White House on selection of a nominee to put through the Senate confirmation process from a slate sent up by Rep. John Boozman.

"This is long overdue and a positive development," said Michael Teague, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor. "Credibility is being restored to the leadership postion at the U.S. attorney’s office. We have confidence Jane Duke will do a good job."

Arkansas Senator happy to see top Rove aide end term as US Attorney

Griffin worked as counsel on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee during the Clinton administration, as his boss, Rep. Dan Burton (R-IN), issued over a thousand subpoenas to Clinton administration officials. Later, he became a top opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee, and worked in the White House for Karl Rove. In a recent congressional hearing, former Justice Department aide Monica Goodling acknowledged there were concerns about his work in the area of ‘caging’ votes in the 2004 presidential election, which some critics contend is a form of voter suppression.

The ex-Rove aide, who also served as a Judge Advocate General in the US Army in Iraq, replaced previous US Attorney H.E. ‘Bud’ Cummins after the Justice Department used authority stealthily inserted into the USA PATRIOT Act that allowed the executive branch to indefinitely appoint interim US Attorneys. He has not been confirmed by the Senate, and Senator Pryor has been strongly critical of the Attorney General and told him in a recent private meeting to resign in large part due to the handling of the Griffin situation.

Griffin worked from September 1995 to January 1997 with Special Prosecutor David Barrett and his investigation of former Secretary of HUD, Henry Cisneros. In September of 1999 he was Deputy Research Director for the Republican National Committee (for Bush’s election campaign) and during that stint was a legal advisor for the "Bush-Cheney 2000 Florida Recount Team" (see Bush v. Gore). For two years after that he was Senior Investigative Counsel for the House Committee on Government Reform. From March 2001 through June 2002 he was Special Assistant to the Assistant Attorney General Michael Chertoff. He then left to become Research Director and Deputy Communications Director for Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign. From September 2005 through September 2006 he worked at the White House as Karl Rove’s aide, with the title of Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Director in the Office of Political Affairs.

While we think of this scandal as being about politicization of the Department of Justice, we ignore the fact that these people are lightweights – people from marginal schools – people with no experience – doing jobs that would be hard for experienced, well trained lawyers. They were appointed because of party loyalty or skills in partisan tricks, not because they could run a Federal Justice Department charged with maintaining Law and Order. They are about as qualified to do their jobs as George W. Bush is to be President [which is not at all].

• caging: The caging process involves obtaining a list of registered voters [that you don’t want to vote]. They are then sent registered letters. The returned letters are used as evidence that that voter doesn’t exist in an attempt to have them removed from the voting roster [they could’ve refused to sign, or be a soldier stationed in Iraq, or someone on vacation, etc.]. This is what happened in Ohio and Florida [it may be what Tim Griffin did].
• microtargeting: Microtargeting is a process of identifying subpopulations in precincts, for example potential Republican voters [rich or religious] in an otherwise Democratic District – and sending them specific mailings. Obviously, microtargeting could mean identification of specific groups for other activities [like caging]. [This is what Sara Taylor did].
• voter fraud: This term has a new, upside down meaning. It means to prosecute cases of voter fraud as a way of intimidating voters. Currently, the Republicans are accusing Democrats of widespread voter fraud, and on a tear to prosecute. Studies looking into this have reported negligable voter fraud. It’s at the center of the U.S. Attorney firing scandal [purgegate]. Remember Schlozman?.

I obviously know very little about such things – techniques, apparently widely applied to manipulate the vote. It’s murky what happened in Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004, but apparently there was wide use of voter technology [my term]. My point is that it’s increasingly clear that whatever this is about, it’s a big deal. At least three of the people with names now on the tips of our tongues – Monica Goodling, Sara Taylor, and Tim Griffin – are proteges of Mr. Rove in this technology, carrying on the tradition of the Young Republicans like Lee Atwater, Donald Segretti, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed, and Karl Rove – the pioneers.

It’s the "dirty tricks" school of political electioneering along with dicrediting candidates, sending out false mailings, phone jamming, bogus polls, etc. It’s almost become conversational to use the term "Rovian" for this kind of politics. The U.S. Attorney Affair has plunged us into the center of this soup. It’s still not completely clear what the strategy was [is], but there’s no question at all that all this business with politicizing the DoJ was, at least, in part, to further the Republican voter technology schemes.

The two emails below are the only ones with Sara Taylor’s name on them in the whole DoJ email dump. But her name is on six from the group of withheld emails in Kyle Sampson’s posession [what was that excuse for withholding emails?]:

The first five are related to discussions about the firing of Bud Cummins to give Tim Griffin a place as a U.S. Attorney [recall that Tim Griffin is a former colleague of both Monica Goodling and Sara Taylor]. And then there’s one that goes with the two listed in the last post [emails from Jeffery [Scott] Jennings about Iglesias’ Press Conference]. One wonders what they were saying about those articles that took 2 or 3 pages, and one really wonders what they had to say about Iglesias. The central point is by what authority do they withhold these emails? It seems like with both Sampson and Taylor resigning, it’s hard to argue that the emails aren’t relevant.

On another note, there’s very little information available about Sara Taylor on the Internet. She had a father. She went to college. She went to the reception for Queen Elizabeth. She wrote one email and received seven. She made a speech to the National Republican Lawyers Association. She was cochair of the National College Republicans [like mentor Karl Rove]. She’s thirty-two years old, meaning she joined the Bush machine at twenty five. That’s it so far.

But, as for a candidate for a U.S. Attorney firing list-maker, she’s way in the lead… 

Senior Rove aide leaves White House.

White House political director and top Karl Rove aide Sara Taylor, “who has been with George W. Bush from the outset of his first presidential campaign, is the latest staff member to leave the president’s employ.

Taylor cleared out her office early last week. She plans to take her skills to the private sector, where the pay will no doubt be better than the $137,000 she earned in 2006 as a deputy assistant to the president. “I haven’t decided on anything,” Taylor said. “I’m looking at a handful of different options.”

Taylor is reportedly intimately involved in the U.S. Attorney scandal. According to Kyle Sampson, Taylor was directly promoting efforts to appoint attorneys without Senate confirmation. The House and Senate Judiciary Committees have approved subpoenas for her testimony.

"… approved subpoenas for her testimony." hmmm…

"… WH leg, political, and communications have signed off." hmmm…

Monica Goodling Testimony

In private testimony that is being released this afternoon by the commitee, Alberto Gonzales’s former Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson told investigators that Gonzales himself initially resisted the idea of bypassing the Senators from Arkansas to install Karl Rove protege Tim Griffin as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. Pressure to do it, he suggested, was coming from officials at the White House–specifically, White House political director Sara Taylor, her deputy Scott Jennings and Chris Oprison, the associate White House counsel. Sampson described himself and Goodling as "open to the idea," which is not the same as instigating it.

"… specifically, White House political director Sara Taylor." hmmm…

Top Rove aide, implicated in Attorneys firings, clears out office

Taylor was also identified by Monica Goodling, Gonzales’s former White House Liaison. After Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) asked Goodling what Karl Rove knew about the firing of the US Attorneys, she suggested Taylor had signed off on the plan.

"There was an e-mail that Mr. Sampson forwarded to me, I think, on December 4, if I’m remembering correctly, that said that it had been circulated to different offices within the White House and that they had all signed off," Goodling answered. "I think it said that White House political had signed off. Political is actually headed by Sara Taylor but does report to Mr. Rove, so I don’t know for sure."

"… Political is actually headed by Sara Taylor but does report to Mr. Rove." hmmm…

So, Sara Taylor, Karl Rove’s recently retired aid, is a "microtarget" expert – identifying Republicans in Democratic areas to microtarget for mailings. I reckon if one were trying to identify places to push "voter fraud" cases to scare off Democratic voters, you’d need a "microtarget" expert. And if you were looking for someone who prepared a list of U.S. Attorneys to replace with Republican Operatives who would push the "voter fraud" cases, you’d probably need a person just exactly like Sara Taylor.

What about referring to her as "Rove’s Brain" as an operating title, until something better comes along…