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Hatch Act Violations Extend to Diplomatic Corps

We've blogged in the past about Karl Rove's political PowerPoints that Rove's deputies went around Washington showing to federal employees, acts of politicalization that are obvious violations of the Hatch Act.

The Post has an A01 story revealing that those PowerPoints even reached foreign policy folks, specifically top diplomats.

White House aides have conducted at least half a dozen political briefings for the Bush administration's top diplomats, including a PowerPoint presentation for ambassadors with senior adviser Karl Rove that named Democratic incumbents targeted for defeat in 2008 and a "general political briefing" at the Peace Corps headquarters after the 2002 midterm elections.

The briefings, mostly run by Rove's deputies at the White House political affairs office, began in early 2001 and included detailed analyses for senior officials of the political landscape surrounding critical congressional and gubernatorial races, according to documents obtained by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Why members of the foreign service need to know which Democrats are targeted for removal in 2008 is beyond me, but if you're going to taint the federal government, you might as well taint all of it. Go big or go home: it's the American way.

Update: The original headline of this article said "diplomatic corp" instead of "diplomatic corps." Mea culpa.

Posted by Jonathan Stein on 07/23/07 at 8:40 PM | Comments (3) | Email | Print

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