Breaking: Rove Had Hand in US Attorney Firings

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The Washington Post has obtained emails showing that Karl Rove, top political advisor to former President George W. Bush, played a significant role in the firing of a number of US attorneys for political reasons. You should go read the Post story 1) if, for some reason, this surprises you, 2) to laugh as a number of Rove’s statements are directly contradicted by the facts, and 3) to get the full details.

One quick, journalism-related note on the story. Marcy Wheeler is right that while none of this “is even remotely surprising” it “does suggest we’ll have these documents… in the relatively near future.” That’s great. But I would just point out that if the Washington Post followed the lead of the US attorneys’ scandal godfathers at Talking Points Memo—or Mother Jones’ own, similar practices—we’d already have those documents. The Post would have put them online so that members of the public could look at the source material and judge for themselves. But it’s not like the Post is in the business of informing the public or anything.

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Today, reader support makes up about two-thirds of our budget, allows us to dig deep on stories that matter, and lets us keep our reporting free for everyone. If you value what you get from Mother Jones, please join us with a tax-deductible donation today so we can keep on doing the type of journalism 2024 demands.

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