"All Roads Lead to Rove ..."

(and if that's true, I think I'll swim ... "to Rove" is the last place I want to go)

After almost 30 months of pounding away at this blog, and asking "Where's the (______)?" (that blank is normally filled in with either "Congress," "press," or "outrage"), it seems that at least the outrage is showing up. And, finally, the press, sort of. No one can deny that 60 Minutes got the ball rolling in terms of national attention for the Siegelman case; however, people like Scott Horton and miscellaneous bloggers were all over that story for many, many months before it ever got on the radar of a national audience.

Yesterday, Thom Hartmann, whose writings we have cited many times here and who has his own radio show on Air America, interviewed former Alabama governor Don Siegelman. Governor Siegelman says a few things that might give us hope that Congress, finally, might be showing up as well. However, it appears that KR has been not only "messin' with Texas" for many years, but "messin' with Alabama" as well. I think this time he messed with the wrong man. Here are a few choice excerpts (but you should read the whole interview here):

Don Siegelman: And when they dig up the evidence that was buried when Alberto Gonzales and Rove left the White House, they're going to find evidence of abuse of power and misuse of the Department of Justice, using it as a political tool to win elections, subverting our democracy and they're going to find that, I believe, that Karl Rove provided an umbrella of protection over those people who were operating to abuse the Department of Justice and because it just doesn't make sense why these people would violate the law with impunity unless they knew that their bosses or someone higher up had given the green light for them to do so.

[cut]

Don Siegelman: Well, thank you I'm excited to be on. I'm just excited that somebody else other than me is interested in what's been going on in Alabama. And it has been so uplifting. When I was in prison with no bail in Louisiana, my spirits were uplifted by my friends and the letters and prayers that they sent. It was uplifted by John Conyers and what he was doing and my own Congressman Artur Davis, but especially uplifted when the national media started spotlighting the injustices beginning with Karl Rove but, you know, but also focussing on Jack Abramoff and what, you know, Abramoff was, I think, Rove's bag man. You know, they were bringing truckloads of casino cash into Alabama according to the McCain report, at least one statement in there indicates that as much as 13 million dollars in Indian casino money came into Alabama to begin to defeat me in 1998 and then to defeat the lottery in '99 and then to defeat me again and help elect Rove's friend and Bill Canary's friend and client Bob Riley in 2002. It's, you know, that's another story.
I think one of the people who emerged as a hero in this story of all roads leading to Rove is Henry Waxman because he is following the money, following Abramoff, and if you look at where that money went, a lot of it came into Alabama. Tom Delay's money came through Alabama as well. And his close relationship with Rove and the fact that they were pumping millions of dollars into Alabama to defeat me beginning in 1998 when Ralph Reed coordinating the Christian Coalition using casino money. And it's also interesting that there has been no federal investigation of Ralph Reed's involvement, of Grover Norquist's involvement and the fact that they were used as conduits by Rove and Abramoff for trying to destroy me.
And something I will never forgive them for is denying our children a chance to go to college for free. Because I think we would have won that educational lottery election in 1999 if it had not been for the millions of dollars that they pumped in here.

As I tried to pick the "best parts" of this interview to reprint here, I couldn't winnow enough of it! You have to read the whole interview. Siegelman relates a narrative that is just riveting, from the stealing of the gubernatorial election up through his trial. And it's not unbelievable in the least! Indeed, the power of his narrative lies in the fact that, based on what we know about KR, it is so damned believable.