"Diplomats Received Political Briefings: Bush Aides Listed Election Targets"

Read the full article by Paul Kane, The Washington Post, July 24, 2007

The White House conducted political briefings for the Bush administration's top diplomats, including a "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......In one instance, State Department aides attended a White House meeting at which political officials examined the 55 most critical House races for 2002 and the media markets most critical to battleground states for President Bush's reelection fight in 2004." In one briefing "Rove explained the White House views on the electoral disaster while Sara M. Taylor, then the director of White House political affairs, showed a PowerPoint presentation that pinned most of the electoral blame on "corrupt" GOP lawmakers and "complacent incumbents." One chart in Taylor's presentation highlighted the GOP's top 36 targets among House Democrats for the 2008 election." The Hatch Act has for many years kept virtually all federal workers from partisan politics from participation in national politics. It protects them from political pressures and bars the use of federal resources -- including office buildings, phones and computers -- for partisan purposes. Senator "Biden plans to raise the matter at a confirmation hearing today for Henrietta Holsman Fore to be administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, whose political appointees received at least two White House briefings in the past 10 months, as well as at an oversight hearing tomorrow on the Peace Corps. Several months ago, White House aides said that about 20 private briefings were held in 15 agencies before the 2006 midterms and that other briefings were held irregularly throughout Bush's first term."

Comment: Did the Bush administration get caught with its hand in the cookie jar? Using foreign policy for domestic political purposes rather than for the larger interests of the United States is a big No No! JAD