{"id":320,"date":"2007-03-26T11:46:19","date_gmt":"2007-03-26T11:46:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/fp-wp\/?p=320"},"modified":"2007-03-26T11:46:19","modified_gmt":"2007-03-26T11:46:19","slug":"how-much-did-specter-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/?p=320","title":{"rendered":"How much did Specter know?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.well.com\">the Well<\/a>, we&#8217;ve been talking a lot among ourselves about the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.talkingpointsmemo.com\/archives\/week_2007_03_25.php#013251\">attorney purge.<\/a> And here&#8217;s what Rik thinks it all comes down to (quoted with permission):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;It&#8217;s beginning to look to me that this justice purge is part of a longterm  Rove plan to affect the 2008 election.   The emphasis on &#8220;voter fraud&#8221; is classic Rove.  He&#8217;s going after the Democrats on what should be a strong  point of theirs, that the Republicans are actually the ones who are guilty  of systematic voter fraud.   And by purging the Justice Department of prosecutors who won&#8217;t play ball, he&#8217;s stacking the deck in advance.   The nerve of him putting in a known flunky with no experience to replace the guy in Arkansas, is astounding.<\/p>\n<p>But it all hung on someone slipping that clause in when they renewed the patriot act.   They&#8217;ve been planning this for years.   And the fact that it was someone in Specter&#8217;s office just nails down my suspicion that Specter&#8217;s in on it.   With that little item to give perspective, his numerous instances of threatening oversight, while ultimately caving in every single time, comes off as pure political theater.   Even now, when he&#8217;s subordinate to Pat Leahy, he&#8217;s the voice urging compromise and reason when he should be absolutely livid at being used and made a fool of for years.   Specter is in on this all the way.  He&#8217;s part of the plot.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over on the Well, we&#8217;ve been talking a lot among ourselves about the attorney purge. And here&#8217;s what Rik thinks it all comes down to (quoted with permission): &#8220;It&#8217;s beginning to look to me that this justice purge is part of a longterm Rove plan to affect the 2008 election. The emphasis on &#8220;voter fraud&#8221; is classic Rove. He&#8217;s going after the Democrats on what should be a strong point of theirs, that the Republicans are actually the ones who are guilty of systematic voter fraud. And by purging the Justice Department of prosecutors who won&#8217;t play ball, he&#8217;s stacking <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/?p=320\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p13tCM-5a","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fierce.jnfr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}