UPDATE: Late breaking news on Griffin’s resignation from a Palast interview with Conyers Thursday night, now posted here…
As Tim Griffin, the former Karl Rove aide and “interim”-installed Arkansas U.S. Attorney replacement for Bud Cummins became the latest Loyal Bushie to take an indignant fall in announcing his resignation yesterday, the mainstream media — well, Slate anyway — finally stopped to take at look at what all this “vote caging” stuff is all about. You know, the stuff that we’ve been running around with our hair on fire about at least since Monica Goodling dropped her bomb in last week’s House Judiciary testimony.
Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick asks this afternoon, “What the heck is vote caging, and why should we care?” Actually, though that’s the story’s headline, the title bar in our browser when viewing the article indicates the original headline was likely the more apropos, “What the heck is vote caging, and why does nobody care?”
Following up on Greg Palast’s Exclusive at BRAD BLOG, on the heels of Monica’s otherwise-unreported bombshell, and the noise that Palast has otherwise been trying to make about Griffin’s vote caging emails for at least three years, Lithwick’s candid self and media appraisal is refreshing and appreciated.
One of the reasons the mainstream news reports (including mine) barely touched the vote-caging story was that nobody had any idea what Goodling was talking about. “Vote caging, what’s that?” we e-mailed each other at Slate.
Sigh…”Nobody” may be an overstatement, as The BRAD BLOG scrambled to report the stunning revelation moments after Goodling’s utterance. But perhaps we’re still a “nobody” to Slate, even if we’ve been mentioned by name of late on their pages. And credit where it’s due, that report was the first by an MSM-ish outlet to give the GOP’s snake-oil front-group, the American Center for Voting Rights, its two-a-half-years-overdue due.
Still, given the rest of Lithwick’s coverage today, we’re happy to let bygones be bygones as slowly, but surely, the media begins to understand the import of so much that we’ve been reporting here — with as much siren-worthy urgency as we could muster — over these past many years…
Go read her article, and leave a thanks in comments for the coverage. Especially as she gets a number of points precisely right in drawing a bead on the White House and their reasons for not wanting Griffin to face questions during a confirmation hearing in the Senate.
“From the point of view of the ongoing DoJ scandal,” Lithwick writes, “perhaps what’s most urgent about the vote-caging claims is that they go a long, long way toward explaining why Karl Rove and Harriet Miers were so determined to get Griffin seated in the Arkansas U.S. Attorney’s office, and to do so without a confirmation hearing.”
Uh, yup.
Griffin “sure looks like a guy hiding something, and if vote caging is that something, it becomes even more interesting that the White House was pushing him forward,” she asserts, before quoting Loyala election law professor, ElectionLawBlog’s Rick Hasen’s response to her question about whether the MSM is “making a mistake in blowing off the vote-caging story.”
Hasen tells her that “Goodling’s mention of it ‘makes me suspect that there’s something there worth investigating by the MSM, even if you don’t buy into the grand conspiracy theories.'” Okay, fair enough. And thank you, Rick.
Lithwick similarly holds both Griffin’s and Congress’s well-warmed feet to the fire:
Sure he would. So no doubt he’ll be volunteering to give testimony under oath before Congress at any moment, right? Don’t count on it. This is felony stuff we’re talking about. And his lack of volunteered comment on emails, as reported by Palast at BBC long ago in 2004 (and ignored ever since by the American MSM) should speak volumes.
Lithwick then comes to the crux of the matter, which goes beyond the persecutor prosecutor, Griffin…
Indeed, even if it’s not the only BRAD BLOG assisted open door that helps explains WH involvement in AttorneyGate. For more on that, see Murray Waas’ exposé today on our friend Thor Hearne of the ACVR in today’s National Journal. We’ll have more on his story, and related others, tomorrow.
Lithwick’s last line then is finally sigh-worthy again, but we’ll let it slide without comment this time around, in hopes that others out there, in Congress, in the MSM, heed her cry…
“Last week was the first time most of us heard about vote caging. It shouldn’t be the last.”
It’s about time! THANK YOU Slate, for finally turning over the rocks and exposing the evil beneath.
Thank you Dahlia and Slate (Slate’s comments are down).
Anybody remember that quote? Clearly, this is Karl giving a little peek (wink-wink, nudge-nudge) into the Republican effort to disenfranchise voters. Between the voting machine rigging and the caging lists, he thought they had the numbers. This ties directly into the phony “voter fraud” issue…their plausible deniability (‘see, the democrats have all these people on the voter rolls that don’t exist’)
On a recent Minnesota Matters (Air America Minnesota) show, callers repeatedly asked Rep. Keith Ellison if they were looking into the caging matter. He was definite… YES, they are. He was well aware of the gravity of the practice, and promised action.
I am printing the Slate article and yours here at Bradblog and sending a copy to my Rep.s in Congress.
I have asked them to read articles before, but usually just sent along a link. I’ve decided they do not read them. Usually I receive a form letter asking for support and donations. This will probably not make any difference, but I gotta try. Seems that when a Dem wins an election, they lose all interest in election fraud.
They knew about caging. They just tried to ignore it until Palast and Kennedy started tying it to the U.S. Attorney scandal.
But, at least, they’re “looking into it”.
Just don’t take too long, boys. They’re working at stealing another election, and we still haven’t gotten to the rotten bottom of the last two for the rest of Amurca.
Brad, you are my hero for your tireless dedication to election reform reporting. And Palast is amazing. Not to mention RFK Jr. You guys ROCK!
It’s so gratifying to see this finally coming to Congress’s attention. Now let’s hope they do the right thing!
it’s about time the thieves were given their due.
No wonder KR was sooooo certain of a 2006 GOP mid term victory……all the mechanics were in place to win by fraud……. He just underestimated the number of registered republican voters breaking ranks and defecting. I’ll bet the margin of democratic vote in 2006 was MUCH larger than we saw, and more dem. senators and congress people actually were elected than we know!!!