ROTTEN TO THE CORE

The Bush White House, that is.

And they evidently take us for idiots. (Well, in fact, we have been idiots since the Supreme Court appointed these bozos to rule over us.)

The full picture of the rottenness is still just emerging to public view, but the hour-long conference call yesterday that White House spokesman Scott Stanzel held with reporters certainly advanced the taking-us-for-idiots part of this story.

There's been a double set of books at the White House for six years. That is to say, there's been an official e-mail system, which is designed to actively prevent the deletion of e-mails (under the Presidential Records Act), and a parallel e-mail system, with that fat black spider Karl Rove as Master Operator, by which these creeps could keep their political shenanigans secret and (they hope) unrecoverable.

(WashPost reporter Dam Froomkin was in on that conference call, and his account of what Stanzel admitted to is MUST reading. It's totally free to you, but you have to register.)

Here's the key: "Over the past six years, about 50 of the White House staffers most involved in Republican Party affairs -- including [most especially] Rove and his office of political affairs -- were given RNC-issued equipment on which to conduct party business. That included laptops and Blackberries."

They've been busily running the government like a political fiefdom ever since, under cover of a parallel e-mail system not (they hope) subject to the Presidential Records Act and beyond the grasp of Congressional investigators (again, they hope). But of course until Nov. 2006 they had absolutely nothing to fear from any Congressional oversight, since none whatsoever existed under two houses of Congress run by their Republican buddies.

One of Karl Rove's top aides once e-mailed convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff: "I now have an RNC blackberry which you can use to e-mail me at any time. No security issues like my WH email." Could malfeasance be any clearer?

What a stinking, nasty sepulchre of rotting ethics this White House has been. The rottenness goes deep, and it goes far. And their attempts so far to explain this all away are beyond pathetic. "They must think we're all idiots!" is the only appropriate response after reading Froomkin's account of the conference call yesterday.

As of this a.m., Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy is on the case, big-time. "They say [the secret e-mails] have not been preserved. I don't believe that!" Leahy shouted from the Senate floor. "You can't erase e-mails, not today. They've gone through too many servers. Those e-mails are there, they just don't want to produce them. We'll subpoena them if necessary."

We count on that, Senator. Somebody's got to get to the bottom of how our government's been manipulated, used, and abused for over six years.