Bush Challenged on Iraq

Voter Fraud Watch

Greg Gordon of McClatchy Newspapers tackles the very central issue of voting fraud (or voting rights, depending on how you frame it.)

"For six years, the Bush administration, aided by Justice Department political appointees, has pursued an aggressive legal effort to restrict voter turnout in key battleground states in ways that favor Republican political candidates.

"The administration intensified its efforts last year as President Bush's popularity and Republican support eroded heading into a midterm battle for control of Congress, which the Democrats won.

"Facing nationwide voter registration drives by Democratic-leaning groups, the administration alleged widespread election fraud and endorsed proposals for tougher state and federal voter identification laws. Presidential political adviser Karl Rove alluded to the strategy in April 2006 when he railed about voter fraud in a speech to the Republican National Lawyers Association.

"Questions about the administration's campaign against alleged voter fraud have helped fuel the political tempest over the firings last year of eight U.S. attorneys, several of whom were ousted in part because they failed to bring voter fraud cases important to Republican politicians. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales could shed more light on the reasons for those firings when he appears Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

"Civil rights advocates charge that the administration's policies were intended to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of poor and minority voters who tend to support Democrats, and by filing state and federal lawsuits, civil rights groups have won court rulings blocking some of its actions."

Supreme Court Watch

Greg Stohr writes for Bloomberg: "The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday erased any doubts that President George W. Bush has succeeded in shifting the court's balance.

"The court's 5-4 vote upholding the Federal Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act almost surely wouldn't have occurred before Bush's appointments of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito."

Linda Greenhouse writes in the New York Times: "The most important vote was that of the newest justice, Samuel A. Alito Jr. In another 5-to-4 decision seven years ago, his predecessor, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, voted to strike down a similar state law. Justice Alito's vote to uphold the federal law made the difference in the outcome announced Wednesday. . . .

"The decision was a major victory for the Bush administration and its vigorous defense of the law, which President Bill Clinton had vetoed twice before President Bush signed it.

"Mr. Bush welcomed the ruling, saying: 'The Supreme Court's decision is an affirmation of the progress we have made over the past six years in protecting human dignity and upholding the sanctity of life. We will continue to work for the day when every child is welcomed in life and protected in law.'"

E-Mail Watch

In a letter to the Republican National Committee, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman yesterday notes that the RNC has refused several requests for information, and he demands some basic facts by Friday, including: