Al Gonzales's Southern Strategy: The Curious Timing of William Jefferson

[McCamy Taylor]

Only an idiot or a child truly believes that justice is blind in America. The FBI has always had a penchant for sting operations involving prominent African-americans. While W. was firing a federal prosecutor to protect Jack Abramoff's criminal ass, agents of the FBI were going out of their way to protect us from Rep. Jefferson's criminal activities--which strikes me as a waste of Justice Department resources, considering how much harm Jefferson did to the the American people relative to how much damage all the Congresspeople associated with Abramoff were doing. Jefferson was skimming some cash from a foreign country. Abramoff was facilitating the theft the our entire electoral system. The two crimes are not even in the same ballpark.

Like so many of Karl Rove's grand schemes to rig the vote, this one has blown up in the RNC's face. Acting White House Counsel Al Gonzales blew it big time when he decided to make this a test case of administrative power by raiding Congressman Jefferson's office. Maybe he has been watching too many "Sopranos" re-runs. Announcing that he was going to start issuing subpoenas like mad to all members of Congressional intelligence and defense committees was just the right level of intimidation for a faux-Attorney General. Following that proclamation up with an honest to God raid on a Congressional office turned him into a member of the Family. Were Congress in Democratic control, they might have accepted this intimidation lying down, particularly since Jefferson's crime is one of money, a sin which Dems will not tolerate. The GOP controlled Congress had what I can only politely call a shit fit.

In all the excitement which has followed, it is easy to forget how we got here. However, I find the history of the present media circus as fascinating as the current showdown between Congress and the Department of Justice. When exactly did the FBI decide to take time out from fighting terrorism to target Jefferson? Was it when it became apparent that the Abramoff scandal would peak in the summer before Election 2006? Certainly, faced with the awful spectre of losing control of Congress, Karl Rove and his buddies in the RNC must have thought "We need to turn this into a bipartisan scandal". Unfortunately for them, Tom Delay had been very strict. His eleventh commandment stated "Thou Shalt Not Give Cash to Democrats", and any lobbyist who broke that rule was cast out of the halls of Congress.

William Jefferson must have seemed like a gift from God. A dirty Democrat. An African-american dirty Democrat, even, from Louisiana, the state which had destroyed W. in the public opinion polls by allowing itself to be flooded by a hurricane and then having the gaul to complain about it in a non-election year. By prosecuting one man, the Department of Justice could paint all Democrats, all African-americans and all Louisiana Blacks as criminals intent upon lining their own pockets.

Just weeks before, Pat Buchanan, who had helped Nixon with own Southern Strategy, had advised Congressional Republicans that the key to retaining control of Congress was to mobilize the base by vilifying African-american Democratic Congressional members. Cynthia McKinney's media lynching turned out to be small potatoes, but the William Jefferson case was a whole different story. Here was a chance for people like Rush to bring up race in their nasty talk shows. When the Democrats rallied around Jefferson, they would be able to claim that Blacks got special treatment in this country. They would push all those buttons, like affirmative action and crime and get the base mobilized and ready to vote to keep Congress in the hands of the GOP---

And then Al Gonzales went and spoiled Karl Rove's carefully orchestrated plan by making the REPUBLICANS rally around William Jefferson, while the Democrats, who have no power to lose in Congress, blithely condemned his criminal activities in the exact same disapproving tones they use for the Abramoff scandal.

It has not been a good year for Karl Rove. Immigration, which was supposed to make the base forget Iraq, has split the base into three parts---the right wing, Big Business, and Hispanics--and now the GOP has to chose which parts it will keep and which it will toss aside. Fitz continues to dog Rove like a stalker from Hell, with the entire mainstream media minus Fox News as Fitz's cheer leading squad. Now, even the Southern Strategy is turning out to be a dud.

The sad thing for Rove---and the positive thing for America---is that the Southern Strategy would have bombed even without Al Gonzales' political blunder. The world has changed a lot since 1972. It has changed a lot since Willie Horton, too. When 9-11 brought Americans together, in the "us versus them" mind set that followed that tragedy, African-americans were very clearly part of "us". Then, when Hurricane Katrina struck, the Bush administration asked the country to forget about African-americans, make them part of "them" again as they used to be once upon a time. The country answered with a great big resounding "Go f*** yourself!"

Al Gonzales is not off the hook. A dirty trick is still a dirty trick, even when it is performed incompetently (and this man raises incompetence to heights that would make the Keystone Cops marvel). When impeachments and criminal imdictments start getting handed out, Alberto Gonzales should be the first sent to federal prison, since the Attorney General, as the designated guardian of federal law is the one most guilty when that law is used for political purposes. I feel for him. He is kind of soft and cute looking. But he should have kept that in mind when he agreed to start breaking the law for his good buddy, W.

[xchrom]

1. the republican culture of corruption didn't go away with the emergence of

jefferson.

it just gave the media their ''look over there'' moment.

and they will take that moment and run with it.

that after is their primary job in this corporate era of politics -- the institutionalizing of corporations as a legitimate arm of the government.

[Supersedeas]

2. so many Repubbie investigations and not one office RAID, odd?

The news conglomerates have a strange lack of curiousity.