The News Behind the News

You may have heard about the resignation of the Democratic governor Eliot Spitzer; caught in a wire-tap while ordering a prostitute; dodogy and wrong IMHO and he should go, along with the rest of 'em. Its the kind of thing I imagine lots of powerful politicians get up to. However there is another story here, about the right-wing and their continued assault on any and all democratic processes that do not lead to them. It turns out that for every Republican politician investigated, an average of 5.6 Democratic ones are investigated – not only that it seems that the investigations are linked to election cycles. It would appear that the plan of the right, for a permanent hegemony over society also extends into (obviously) politicizing all the functions of government:

However, there is a second tier of questions that needs to be examined with respect to the Spitzer case. They go to prosecutorial motivation and direction. Note that this prosecution was managed with staffers from the Public Integrity Section at the Department of Justice. This section is now at the center of a major scandal concerning politically directed prosecutions. During the Bush Administration, his Justice Department has opened 5.6 cases against Democrats for every one involving a Republican. Beyond this, a number of the cases seem to have been tied closely to election cycles. Indeed, a study of the cases out of Alabama shows clearly that even cases opened against Republicans are in fact only part of a broader pattern of going after Democrats.

For more on the tactics of the right see here and here.
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