Karl Rove and His Alabama Connections

All roads to Karl Rove seem to run through Alabama.

So notes Scott Horton of Harper's in an intriguing post today. Highlights from Horton's post:

* Horton discusses Rove's appearance at Alabama's Troy University to speak at its journalism center. The visit was arranged by U.S. Representative Terry Everett, who is the mentor for U.S. District Judge Mark Fuller, who oversaw the Don Siegelman trial. "The Alabama GOP has been very good to Karl Rove, and Karl Rove has been very good to the Alabama GOP," Horton writes. "It's a thoroughly symbiotic relationship."

* During his Troy address, Rove noted the brewing U.S. Attorneys scandal and compared it to the removal of "123 U.S. attorneys during the previous administration." Rove fails to mention, Horton states, that newly elected president Bill Clinton received the resignation of all U.S. attorneys when he was inaugurated, as generally happens with all presidents. That is a very different matter from the current scandal, where U.S. attorneys appointed by Bush evidently were fired because they refused to politicize their offices.

* Horton says the subpoena showdown with Congress is not likely to go away now that Rove has announced his resignation from the Bush White House. Horton notes that much of the scandal-related material was stored on a Republican National Committee server, suggesting that Rove considered the matter to be of a partisan political nature. This also would weaken any claim by Rove of executive privilege.

For good measure, Horton adds a post about his awards for best and worst performances in the Rove postmortem. His award for best blog post goes to conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan. Another sign that Rove was hardly beloved among his fellow Republicans.