Well well well....

It seemed like this US Attorney "purge" was about firing attorneys who were getting too close to Republican scandals. Like Carol Lam in San Diego who was investigating Randy "Duke" Cunningham. Or David Iglesias who wasn't done with his investigation of a state Democratic Senator in New Mexico before the 2006 election. Rep. Heather Wilson (R NM) and Senator Pete Domenici (R NM) wanted the state senator out before the election and they were pissed he was dragging his feet waiting for 'the facts', so they went to good ol' Karl to get the guy canned. It didn't seem all that surprising that Gonzalez and Bush and Rove would stoop to bring politics to the Justice Department just to protect some corrupt colleagues. But oh, just wait for it - it's much much MUCH bigger than that.

McClatchy newspapers has just broken this thing wide open. It's not just about the guys who they fired - oh no - it's about where those attorneys resided and who they replaced them with. See there are 11 states that the Republicans were targeting for 2008. 11 states that Karl Rove told the Republican Lawyers Association were "in play" and vital for the 2008 election. And guess what? Those 9 US Attorneys who have been 'purged' were from 9 of those 11 states. And guess who they replaced them with? 9 lawyers known for their histories supporting voter suppression of Democrats - you know, like the guy in Florida who purged voter rolls of poor, black people. The only silver lining is we can say goodbye to Gonzo (the AP is reporting the proof of his concerted effort to target these attorneys here).

And you can read the full, unbelievable tale of voter suppression here.

One amazing aspect of this story that only the LA Times has fully reported - this story, the full scope of which we are only now learning, would never have come to light if Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo hadn't taken some time last year to wonder why Carol Lam was fired after she so successfully investigated Duke Cunningham. He kept digging, kept asking questions, kept writing about it - and slowly and surely uncovered another, and then Iglesias, and then another and another. Josh's team at TPM did this country a tremendous service. Now that McClatchy has unearthed this scope and depth of this conspiracy, I shudder to think what would have happened next year without Josh. We owe him. Huge.

The Democrats in the House today passed a bill to start withdrawing troops. But we cannot stop there. We must support our Democrats in both houses so they have the strength to continue these investigations. If you have a minute on Monday, call your Representative, call Harry Reid, call Henry Waxman, call Barbara Boxer and Patrick Leahy and tell them to stay strong. Tell them to never bend to the White House - tell them to force Karl and Harriet and Gonzo to testify under oath, with a transcript. What this administration has done is evil.

As Edmund Burke said, "all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

Let's do something.