Rove's latest dirty trick: The Patriot Act prosecutor switch

Just when you may have thought there might be nothing more to know about the extraordinary malfeasance by the Bush administration, come more sickening details. A little-known provision of the "Patriot" Act apparently was designed for no other purpose than to allow Karl Rove to create more Republican pseudo prosecutors to run for Congress. The plan, as described in a N.Y. Times Op-ed, kills two birds with one stone. It lets Bush axe some particularly effective prosecutors of corrupt Republicans and replace them with inexperienced novices who will then use their new title of U.S. Attorney as a tough-on-crime credential to win a seat in the 2008 election. Diabolical. The change in the Patriot Act allows the newbies to serve indefinitely as interim U.S. Attorneys without ever having to face the embarrassment of rejection by the Senate.

As with so many of these political dirty tricks and abuses of power, Democrats will not have enough guile to use them if they get the White House back, so there is very little downside for the Republicans. Public outcry (and maybe some sense of the integrity that is critical to public trust in the inherent power of the U.S. Attorney post) probably will motivate Democrats to close this wormhole if they get the chance to overhaul the Patriot Act. But who knows? The bar has been set so low it may never get raised back to where it was before Bush came to town. (See followup story.)