Steve Biskupic: No Worries, Duh!

When Karl Rove and Harriet Miers were looking for the heads of U.S. Attorneys to put on a spike in 2005 and 2006, you can probably guess their reaction when they came to the man heading up the office in Eastern Wisconsin. “Ah, Biskupic!” you can imagine Rove exclaiming, his eyes glazing over in the rapture of the U.S Attorney of his dreams. “Yes, Biskupic,” the non-Supreme Court Justice Miers would say, confirming legally what Rove sensed in his manipulative heart. “He’s a good one.” “Yesss,” Rove would sigh. “He’s a good boy. Good Boy!”

Whether by direction, design or just plain old predisposition, Steve Biskupic has walked the political walk for Junior Bush since he was appointed by the Decider in 2002. Whether it’s going after Democratic alderman for buying themselves groceries, civil servants working for a Democratic governor, contributors to the same Democratic governor and investigating non-existent “voter fraud” (the very definition of an elephant laboring for months and bearing a mouse), Biskupic has been Johnny-on-the-Spot for the Bushies‘ political agenda.

Oh, and never mind those Republicans who happen to find themselves on the knife’s edge of investigation and possible illegality. For instance, Biskupic was supposedly investigating some monkey-business between Scott Walker and indicted former Tommy Thompson cabana-boy Nick Hurtgen. The result? Uh, nothing to see here, everyone move along. He also conveniently bailed from the prosecution of the Republican District Attorney in Winnebago County, Joseph Paulus, who has since convicted of bribery and is now in federal prison. His brother happened to work for Paulus. Maybe the reason Biskupic never goes after Republicans is because, if you swing a stick in his house or his office or his country club, you’ll hit five or six of them. Just guessing here.

In the Journal Sentinel today, Biskupic does an interesting thing; answering a question nobody asked him.

"I received no communication, either negative or positive, from the attorney general's office or the White House regarding the voter fraud cases. The first I learned that there had been criticism was in published reports on Wednesday. During my time as U.S. attorney, the only case that I have been asked to discuss with the attorney general was the civil rights investigation of the beating of Frank Jude, Jr."

Assuming the issue he is trying to address is possible political influence in and on his office, you can file this under the Nixonian category of the “non-denial denial”. First of all, who would have to talk to him about the phony voter fraud investigation? He's done such a good job driving the GOP agenda on his own. Just by picking it up and churning it for a couple of months after the 2004 election, he was doing GOP legwork -- giving the false impression of a problem while the Republicans were busy trying to suppress the vote with voter ID and anything else they can find.

[Aside: I have always found it amazing that Republicans have the nerve to squawk about “voter fraud” after what they pulled in Florida in 2000. They showed such a cynical disrespect to the sanctity of the vote by shutting down the recount, they are the last people who should have anything to say about what is or is not a legitimate election.]

Notice that, in his statement, Biskupic does not deny that political influence has anything to do with his ridiculous imprisonment of poor civil servant Georgia Thompson and his latest indirect attack on Jim Doyle, the Troha indictment. Almost the entire GOP strategy in their failed campaign for governor was to smear Doyle with Biskupic-driven innuendo, as is their current campaign to prevent Doyle from doing anything positive for the state. Although the case i over and the poor woman is in prison, Biskupic’s favorite phrase in the Thompson persecution is that “the investigation is continuing” a fact which wing-nuts celebrate like the rising sun everyday.

And the Troha indictment, as GOP shills brag, mentions Doyle 14 times, without bothering to mention that a Republican Congressman, Paul Ryan, also benefited from Troha’s clumsy and desperate largess (at least he got something from Ryan -- a call supporting the Kenosha casino to the federal agency responsible for the review).

And, what was said by whom to whom about the Jude cops prosecutions? Does he think influence on his office by politicians is acceptable just because it involves the complaints of a black man against white cops? Is there some reason the politicians contacting him would want the prosecutions -- perhaps a safe way to pretend Republicans give a damn or (more likely) to make former DA Mike McCann look bad?

You can bet that Biskupic will continue to be useful to Karl Rove’s Permanent Campaign of personal destruction, dancing around the fringes of Jim Doyle’s employees and contributors for the benefit of the GOP and wing-nut radio entertainment. After the review that Rove and Miers ran on his vote-fraud-wimpy colleagues, resulting in the sacking of eight of them, he can rest easy for now.

But he'll have to find something else to do in January 2009 when there is a New Decider and someone with integrity -- like the excellent Clinton appointment in 1993, Tom Schneider -- will come back in, close down the political sideshows and stop doing the dirty business of the dirtiest administration in U.S. history.