Has Karl Rove's Terror Campaign Worked in the Deep South?

After I wrote yesterday about the race for a seat on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals, a disturbing question came to mind:

Has Republican strategist Karl Rove succeeded with his long-running campaign to intimidate Democratic candidates for statewide offices in the Deep South?

In his seminal reporting on the Bush Justice Department, Scott Horton of Harper's magazine has raised numerous important points about the motives behind political prosecutions, such as the Don Siegelman case in Alabama and the Paul Minor case in Mississippi.

Two points, in particular, are rattling around in my head at the moment:

* The goal behind the Mississippi prosecution apparently was to dry up a key source of financial support for Democratic candidates. Paul Minor, an attorney who had become wealthy from bringing successful litigation against the asbestos and tobacco industries, was one such donor--in Mississippi and beyond. Minor was a major supporter of John Edwards' presidential campaign, and Horton has reported that Bush strategists had fingered Edwards as the most likely threat to Dubya's re-election in 2004. That evidently helped make Minor a target for the Bush DOJ--along with state judges Wes Teel and John Whitfield, who had received Minor's campaign support. Minor, Teel, and Whitfield all are in federal prison for crimes that, as we have shown in an extensive series of posts here at Legal Schnauzer, they did not commit. The message? If you give to Democratic candidates in a deep red, Deep South state, you will come to regret it.

* The goal of the Alabama prosecution apparently was to eliminate a Democrat who had a troubling habit of beating Republicans in statewide elections. Siegelman had done it four times--in races for secretary of state, attorney general, lieutenant governor, and governor. Rove and Co. evidently decided, "By God, he's not going to get re-elected as governor." And they used a federal investigation, and disappearing vote totals overnight in heavily Republican Baldwin County, to accomplish that goal. The message? If you are a Democrat who beats us at the ballot box in a deep red, Deep South state, we will make you pay.

Those messages came to mind after I wrote yesterday that Presiding Judge William C. Thompson, a Republican, is almost certainly going to be re-elected to his seat on the Alabama Court of Civil Appeals--even though he is demonstrably corrupt. I know Thompson is corrupt because I had an appeal before him in 2005, and Thompson swept the unlawful trial-court judgment under the rug by issuing a no-opinion affirmance.

Thompson appears to be a shoo-in for re-election because Democratic challenger Kimberly Drake has not been able to put up much of a fight. My post drew the following response from Robert Sullivan, Drake's campaign manager:

To quickly and briefly respond to the Legal Schnauzer blog, we’re putting up as much of a fight as we can, given our resources.

Thompson does lead Drake in campaign contributions--this is Alabama and a Democrat will always face an uphill battle. He is a beneficiary of the same backers as Shaw (Greg Shaw, running for Alabama Supreme Court) and is another product of Rove’s gaming of Alabama’s elections.

However, Kim has TV spots scheduled to appear this week, as are some radio spots. She has given interviews with several newspapers and a radio station. She also appeared at the judicial fundraiser and candidate forum at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens.

In the mean time, Drake is still a mother of three and a lawyer, while Thompson has time to fritter away.

We are also reaching out to Christians, who are unhappy with Thompson. Politics makes for strange bed fellows.

This is not over.

I hope Sullivan is right, and I didn't mean to imply that Drake isn't doing the best she can do. In fact, she has two sure votes here in the Schnauzer household, and I encourage all Alabamians to vote for her.

My main point was this: Bill Thompson needs to be booted out of office, and it's a crying shame that the Alabama Democratic Party could not help a candidate (either Drake or someone else) put up a serious fight. For two or three years now, I've been trying to tell Alabama Democratic leaders that I can prove the all-Republican Court of Civil Appeals is corrupt--and I've been willing to go public with it. But Democrats have not been able to take advantage, and as a result, Bill Thompson almost certainly will get another six years on the bench.

But back to Karl Rove: Is it possible Democrats could not give Thompson a fight because they were afraid to do it, even afraid to win?
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Russia test-fired three long-range missiles from submarine distance 7,145 miles

Russia test-fired three long-range missiles on Sunday and pronounced its nuclear deterrent strong in a show of force that experts said had not been seen since the days of the Cold War.

Two of the missiles were fired from nuclear submarines in the Asian and European extremes of the sprawling country while a third was watched by President Dmitry Medvedev on land in northwest Russia, news agencies reported.

It was the second Russian intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) test in as many days and the latest in a series of high-profile military exercises of conventional land, sea and air forces as well as strategic nuclear units.

"This shows that our deterrent is in order," Medvedev was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as saying after Sunday's missile launches.

"We will of course be introducing new types of forces and means into the military," he added, without elaborating.

Independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer said the exercises reflected Russia's determination to prepare for major military conflict.

"This was a dry run for a war with the United States," Felgenhauer said of the missile launches, part of major military manoeuvres billed "Stability 2008" involving all military branches.

"These are the biggest strategic war games in more than 20 years. They are on a parallel with those held in the first half of the 1980s. Nothing of the sort has been seen either in Russia or the United States since then," he said.

Russian navy spokesman Igor Dygalo confirmed the near-simultaneous ICBM test-launches from submarines in the Sea of Okhotsk north of Japan and the Barents Sea northeast of Norway, saying they had been planned well in advance.

Speaking to AFP from northwest Russia, Dygalo admitted it was unusual for the navy to conduct three ICBM test launches in two days -- a submarine in the Barents Sea also fired a missile Saturday -- and called the tests successful.

"The missiles hit right on target," he said. News agencies said the missiles launched from the Barents Sea and the secret base at Plesetsk hit targets on the Kamchatka peninsula thousands of kilometres (miles) to the east.
The Official News Source

Delta Force officer: US officials stopped plans to kill bin Laden

After September 11, 2001, a team of elite Delta Force commandos was sent into Afghanistan with an assignment to find and kill Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora -- but that mission failed.

The commander of the Delta Force team has now written a book which tells what he says is the true story of what went wrong. He appeared anonymously on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday to summarize that story.

Bin Lad More..en was known to be holed up at Tora Bora on a ridge with an elevation of 14,000 feet. The Delta Force team's initial plan was to come at him from the direction he'd least expect, climbing over the mountains at his back, but that plan wasn't approved by the higher-ups. Their second idea, to drop hundreds of landmines along the mountain passes to Pakistan to impede bin Laden's retreat and then bring in helicopters, was also turned down.

"How often does Delta come up with a tactical plan that's disapproved by higher headquarters?" CBS's Scott Pelley asked the commando leader.

"In my experience, in my five years at Delta, never before," he replied.

The only remaining option was a frontal assault by 50 US Delta Force members plus their Afghan guides -- and the Afghan warlord accompanying the commandos frankly told them, "I don't think you guys can handle it." A few million dollars from the CIA quickly secured his cooperation, but only to a degree.

The Delta Force leader told CBS that the Afghan fighters went home every night, abandoning whatever territory had been gained that day. "It was almost like it was an agreement, an understanding between the two forces fighting each other," he stated When the CIA did come up with an exact location on bin Laden, it was nighttime, and the Afghan support was nowhere to be found.

"It wasn't worth the risk at that particular moment to go up there and play cowboy," the leader told CBS. "It was better to be cautious, refit, go up there with the entire force the next day and play the battle out as we had planned." But when he attempted to move on bin Laden the next day, his Afghan allies balked, saying they had negotiated a cease fire with al Qaeda, and even drew their weapons on the Delta force team to prevent it from acting alone.

Shortly thereafter, intercepted radio communications showed that bin Laden was on the move. A cave which al Qaeda members had been seen entering was bombed for several hours, and it was thought that bin Laden had died there. But when US forces checked the cave six months later, bin Laden's body was not found. The Delta Force leader believes he received medical treatment in a local village and then got away safely into Pakistan.
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