Here's what's wrong with the Republican Party today.

The US attorney scandal is symptomatic of the Republican Party for the last forty years. Look at the history.

First, from Josh Marshall

The president fired US Attorneys to stymie investigations of Republicans and punish US Attorneys who didn't harass Democrats with bogus voter fraud prosecutions. In the former instance, the evidence remains circumstantial. But in the latter the evidence is clear, overwhelming and undeniable.

Indeed, it is so undeniable the president hismelf does not deny it.

The president himself says that in some cases US Attorneys were dismissed because they were too lax in prosecuting election fraud. What he does not say -- but what we know directly from the accounts of the players involved -- is that these were cases in which Republican operatives and activists complained to the White House and Republican members of Congress that certain US Attorneys weren't convening grand juries or issuing indictments against Democrats, even though these were cases where all the available evidence suggests there was no wrongdoing prosecuted. (It's all reminiscent of the bogus voter fraud allegations Republicans got caught peddling in the South Dakota senate race in 2002. Only in this case getting these charges into the press wasn't enough; they wanted to use US Attorneys to actual harrass people or put them in jail.)

We know that Republican members of Congress sought to pressure the prosecutors in question to push these indictments. And we know at least in the case of David Iglesias in New Mexico that Sen. Domenici's (R-NM) complaints after not being able to get Iglesias to knuckle under were directly tied to his dismissal.

Back up a bit from the sparks flying over executive privilege and congressional testimony and you realize that these are textbook cases of the party in power interfering or obstructing the administration of justice for narrowly partisan purposes. It's a direct attack on the rule of law.

Also from Josh Marshall regarding Tony Snow's anti Constitutional statements today:

Quite a few people have speculated over whether Tony Snow really meant to say that Congress had no right or ability to conduct oversight of the executive branch. The claim is belied by the US constitution and all US history down to the present day. But I strongly suspect that it was no accident, slip of the tongue or loosely general statement the White House won't stand behind.

The simple truth, I think, is that there's too much criminality waiting to be uncovered.

Now over to Digby, who gives us a brief summary of the history of the Republican Party and Constitutionality:

The Republican Party has become authoritarian and unethical to an extreme. The lessons they have taken from the constitutional usurpation they attempt every time they gain the presidency are clear: they believe they have nothing to lose, at least long term, by abusing the power of their offices. They know that the Democrats will rail ineffectually until they win the presidency, at which point the Republicans will use the tools of scandal against them, even if they have to blow up watermelons in the back yard to do it. There are always some unsavory elements in government, but in the modern era this kind of institutional corruption started in the Nixon administration and then escalated through Reagan and Bush II. (Bush I only played really rough when it looked like he was going to lose his election.) Each of those presidencies had serious scandals concerning abuse of presidential power. I don't think it's paranoid to see a pattern.

No, it's not paranoid to see a pattern. All you have to do is work to see what is behind the Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt (FUD) that the Republicans and the media work so well together to build to conceal the anti-Americanism of the modern Republican Party. The Republican corruption is a really big thing in itself, but it is small compared to the effort they are putting into creating an authoritarian state of America.

How long until they declare that the US Constitution is a classified document, and anyone who reads it or quotes from it is a criminal who is to be placed in Prison or simply to be disappeared?