Why are you paying Karl Rove's salary?

   From AlterNet

Cenk Uygur is co-host of The Young Turks, the first liberal radio show to air nationwide.

Why are you paying Karl Rove's salary?
Posted by Cenk Uygur on March 16, 2007 at 7:48 AM.

Karl Rove is in trouble now for being involved in the decision to fire US attorneys for political reasons. But, of course, he was involved. That's what his job is at the White House: politics.

What I don't understand is why the American taxpayer has to pay for a political operative to operate out of the White House. Of course, every president gets advice about policy and politics from his staff while he is in office. But Karl Rove doesn't do policy, he only does politics.

The White House made this very clear when they moved Rove out of policy positions before the 2006 elections so that he could focus on the 2006 campaign. So, why were we paying him to do that?

If the Republican Party wants to hire him as their consultant, that's one thing. But why should American taxpayers of all political persuasions pay for a consultant to sit inside the White House and try to engineer Republican victories?

And now we find out that part of that engineering involved pressuring Justice Department prosecutors to launch investigations of Democrats and/or stop investigations of Republicans. If they didn't, there would be consequences. And there were.

The Republicans lost the elections. Exactly one month later, seven of those prosecutors were fired. They're not strong on subtlety in the Bush administration.

Isn't this a thousand miles over the line? I think it's pretty clearly over the line that he is being paid by the government to work for the Republicans. But when he plays with the Justice Department to carry out his political plots and plans, he's gone way too far.

I think that Alberto Gonzales is going to step down soon. I explain why here. But the short answer is because this scandal has now touched Rove and by extension - and admission - the president.

But even if Gonzales does step down, that doesn't explain why Rove should continue to be paid by the taxpayers to hatch his political plots inside the White House - and use government agencies for those purposes. There's no excuse for it. Rove must go.

 

Technorati tags: Karl Rove, White House, Bush Administration

18% of Iraqis Have confidence in US and Coalition Troops

18% of Iraqis have confidence in US and coalition troops.

67% feel that reconstruction efforts in Iraq have not been effective. Source

   Of the 2,000 people polled in all 18 Iraqi provinces, only 26% said that they felt safe in their own neighborhoods.

    40% thought that the situation ( generally ) will improve. 39% believed that their lives are going well and 35% think that their lives will improve over the next year.

   78% of Iraqis oppose the presence of coalition forces and 69% said the coalition forces worsen the security situation in Iraq.

   88% said that the availability of electricity was either " quite bad " or " very bad ".   Source

   About 69 per cent gave similar responses for the availability of clean water, and 88 per cent said so for the availability of driving or cooking fuel.

D3 Systems questioned more than 2,000 people across all 18 Iraqi provinces between February 25 and March 5 for the survey, which was published on Monday.

A survey conducted for the BBC in November 2005 had painted a much brighter picture, with 71 per cent saying their lives were going well, 64 per cent saying their lives would be better in 12 months, and 69 per cent saying the situation in the country would be improved in a year.

The increased pessimism was reflected in a 14 per cent drop in support for democracy, with eight percentage point rises in support for both a strong leader and for an Islamic state.

    The poll was commissioned by the BBC and ABC News.

 

Technorati tags: Iraq, Iraqis, U.S. troops, coalition forces, democracy