The Plot

to screw Democrats over began far sooner than Gonzalesgate:

One of the aims of the abortive purge of U.S. attorneys was to punish those who refused to toe the line on the new emphasis on alleged voter fraud. A few fired prosecutors would serve as examples to the rest –- either move to criminalize the election process or face dismissal.

But the assault on voter fraud was a solution looking for a problem. As part of the Help America Vote Act, Republicans insisted on creating the Election Assistance Commission, which commissioned studies of the asserted problem. When the studies failed to turn up evidence of fraud nationwide, appointed Republican officials on the EAC insisted that the language say only that "there is a great deal of debate on the pervasiveness of fraud in elections" -- the same approach to inconvenient evidence that's made the Bush global-warming policy the envy of the world.