Freepress - Bush/Rove's new Ohio attack is about revenge, intimidation

[dzika]

Bush/Rove's new Ohio attack is about revenge, intimidation and contempt for American democracy

by Harvey Wasserman
January 21, 2005

As the toxic dust settles on George W. Bush's second illegitimate inauguration, his moral legacy has been defined by the GOP's new attack on Ohio's 2004 election challenge legal team.

Republican Attorney General Jim Petro has attacked attorneys Bob Fitrakis, Susan Truitt, Cliff Arnebeck and Peter Peckarsky in front of the Ohio Supreme Court. Petro is demanding they be sanctioned and fined for filing the Moss v. Bush lawsuit that challenged the seating of Ohio's Republican Electoral College delegates.

Moss v. Bush has already entered the history books as the suit that set the legal framework for an unprecedented grassroots/internet campaign that brought the first Congressional challenge in US history to a state's Electoral delegation, a challenge that infuriated the Bush/Rove GOP.

Petro claims that Moss v. Bush suit was "frivolous." He says his punitive attack is about the "serious" nature of the court system.

In fact what Petro's doing is about revenge, intimidation and contempt for democracy and the law.


continued
http://www.freepress.org/columns/display/7/2005/1045

[tommcintyre]

1. At least part of the motivation

Yes, this is obviously an attempted "slap down" to send a "message" to those who would challenge them. <Similar to what was done to the "obstructionist" Daschelle.>

But I also think this is an attempt to pre-empt the trouble they know may be coming. The Ohio AG has drawn much more attention to the issue, so I don't think they expect it to just go away.

If so, this is VERY good news.

[shraby]

2. There was an earlier post with a letter

from Conyers to the Ohio AG dressing him down for the suit against the attorneys. Don't have a link, but it was posted this afternoon.

[tommcintyre]

4. Here it is

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x297045

Thanks for pointing it out.

[FreepFryer]

3. It may in fact be even more than VERY good news - it might be a 'straw'...

...that breaks the camel's back.

In order to prove whether Moss v. Bush was indeed spurious and without merit, the question of the validity and range of the 'evidence' must be examined.

If this ever goes to court, the evidence for Moss v. Bush will get more critical examination than they ever got during the stonewalling of the OH SC. And every day, we get closer to understanding what really happened, especially vis-a-vis exit poll data, shunned by many due to the unknowns and pitfalls of relying on statistics and 'hard math'.

[tommcintyre]

5. This is startin' ta sound like da "Tar Baby" story

Da mo' day hitz zit, da mo' stucks day gets. ;)

<Read it here if you want, just please don't tell "Uncle Karl" about it.>

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~UG97/remus/tar-baby.html

P.S. I can't wait to see the result of yesterday's thinly veiled Nightline anti-election fraud "infomercial". They took such a whack at that "tar baby" I can envision many ways "day gonna git reely stuck!" <Damn, I just busted the spellchecker.> ;)

[Carolab]

6. I must just say.

Harvey Wasserman can WRITE!