John McCain just keeps on missing vote after vote on Iraq — including today’s on the Feingold amendment.

In a swipe at Rudy, Mitt Romney says the GOP needs to nominate a strong family man.

That and lots of other news in our Election Central Happy Hour Roundup.

From Evans-Novak Political Report …

Rove’s former assistant, Susan Ralston, is currently seeking immunity to testify before Waxman’s committee. Ralston is a former assistant to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced Washington super-lobbyist and Republican fund-raiser. As Rove’s gatekeeper, she became special assistant to the President and the highest-ranking Filipino-American in the administration. For Waxman, she is a link between Abramoff and Rove. Ralston was deposed behind closed doors prior to her request for immunity. According to her friends, she has nothing to say that would cause problems for Rove. Her request for immunity was forwarded to the Justice Department, whose recommendation may or may not be followed by Congress.

On President Bush’s ‘war czar’ …

From a knowledgable TPM Reader …

I haven’t read exhaustively on this, but it seems that the lede is getting buried in stories about the appointment of LTG Lute as war “czar.” It’s not that the administration had to lower their sights to a 3-star. The amazing thing is that they had to fall back on an active duty general – a guy they could order to take the job. All the previous names floated were retired folks who had the luxury of turning the offer down.

I’ve never met Lute, but his resume is solid. It’s particularly noteworthy that his last three jobs have all been joint positions. He will probably be an effective organizer. But as a currently serving 3-star, he will be at best a coordinator, outranked by many of the key people he needs to coordinate.

It is somewhat troubling how more and more of our senior national security positions are being filled by military folks still on active duty or just recently retired (CIA, DNI, etc.). There needs to be a balance in backgrounds, and we’ve probably pushed past the right level.

And from tonight’s Nelson Report …

there’s a fascinating debate ongoing from “the uniforms” and from sensible civilian staff types. One major concern is the conflation of appropriate civilian and military roles.

Providing “best military advice” is the military’s responsibility, and also a right. The responsibility of the civilian leadership is to provide military leaders with enough knowledge of “national policy” to be able to advise, and to understand military matters well enough to understand that advice…and to give it proper and thoughtful consideration.

As we see with the Congressional debate and posturing over how to use the budget to set a schedule and “benchmarks” for success in Iraq, Capitol Hill now shares with the majority of the public the view that the Bush Administration’s civilian leadership did not live up to any of its responsibilities…aided and abetted by serious dereliction of news media and Congressional oversight duties.

What we hear repeatedly expressed as the danger now…both with this nomination, and with constantly rhetorically making Gen. Petraeus responsible for “the plan” in Iraq…is that the military will be held accountable for the policy. As a military friend privately comments, “This is simply wrong”.

There’s also a serious debate going on within military circles about what might be termed Constitutional issues…a debate which could well get to the Congress, since the Senate will be required to hold hearings and to approve Lute’s nomination. Here’s the private comment of a very well-known retired general, which has resonance for Japan’s debate over revising Article 9:

“The czar business is certainly unprecedented and is either a tacit admission that the in-place structure does not meet the needs of the time or is a political maneuver by a desperate president shuffling the deck chairs.

This is serious stuff, indeed, for it calls into question the basic construct of the US military for over half a century.

It remains to be seen what Lute’s brief will be and given Title 10, what authorities he is given. In any case POTUS is tampering with fundamentals and it will have serious consequences that I hope have been fully analyzed and understood.

Certainly the Congress which gave birth to the National Security Act and all the legislation that followed has to weigh in on this.

Given the anti-Bush temperament of that body, I find it stunning that the President has given it another reason to attack him for not knowing what he is doing.

The days ahead will be most interesting.”

Ed Kilgore gives us his own up close perspective on Jerry Falwell’s (or not Jerry Falwell’s) Lynchburg, Virginia.

More (from McClatchy …)

The Justice Department last year considered firing two U.S. attorneys in Florida and Colorado, states where allegations of voter fraud and countercharges of voter intimidation have flown in recent years, congressional investigators have learned.

That brings to nine the number of battleground election states where the Bush administration set out to replace some of the nation’s top prosecutors. In at least seven states, it now appears, U.S. attorneys were fired or considered for firing as Republicans in those states urged investigations or prosecutions of alleged Democratic voter fraud.

The two prosecutors who were targeted were Gregory Miller, the U.S. attorney for the northern district of Florida in Tallahassee, and Bill Leone, the former acting U.S. attorney for Colorado.

The other obvious point — they’re all swing states, which should come as no surprise since it’s all of a piece. The bogus ‘vote fraud’ charges are voter suppression tactic aimed at keeping the level of minority voting down in close races.

Is this the buried lede of all buried ledes? (The answer appears to be no: see update below.)

Deep down in the second to last paragraph of the new McClatchy Attorney Purge story out tonight reads …

A U.S. attorney in Minnesota, who disagreed with the Justice Department on a case involving voting rolls, was asked to resign early last year.

Minnesota only has one US Attorney district, the one based in Minneapolis. So this must refer to Thomas Heffelfinger, the former Minneapolis US Attorney who resigned last year to be replaced by the notorious martinet Rachel Paulose.

It’s been long suspected that Heffelfinger might have been shoved aside to make room for Paulose. And we’ve known for almost a month that Heffelinger did show up on the DOJ firing list not long before his departure. But I was not aware that we had had clear and specific evidence that he was fired or, as they say, asked to resign. And as hard as it might be to believe his desire to move on to other challenges was just a big coincidence he did go on Minnesota public radio at the end of the last month and very definitively say that he hadn’t been pushed out.

But McClatchy is saying — and even rather offhandedly — that he was told to resign and that he was pushed because he wouldn’t go along with the voter roll purges that the Department of Justice was pushing in swing states around the country. If I’d had to guess what happened. Something like that would be my top guess. But who found this out? And why is the first we hear of it so deep down in this article about two other US Attorneys?

Update: Actually, we understand that the McClatchy piece mistakenly had “Minnesota” where there should have been “Missouri” — which would make sense, since Kansas City’s Todd Graves has confirmed that he was asked to leave, and he did disagree with the Justice Department on a case involving voting rolls. So a false alarm. — PK

The Post has still more on the growing list of US Attorneys who at one time or another appeared on the DOJ firing list. The number is now up to 26 or higher, according to sources consulted by the Post. And to add further confusion we’re now hearing about some folks who are such administration loyalists that they’re actually being questioned as playing a role in the firings rather than being potential firees.

You can see the article here.

This puts me in the mind of an email I got a couple months ago from a friend who I’d call a seasoned Washington type.

It seems plausble to me that Harriet would get the idea in her head, thinking–or having been told–that she find an artful way of getting rid of PF [i.e., Patrick Fitzgerald].

And maybe that idea of hers was shot down as too “Saturday Night Massacre”-y. But it’s in the nature of humans, as well as bureaucracies, for an idea to get rolling and then to gain new fans and constituencies as it rolls along that have little or nothing to do with the original impetus.

So various White House aides and DOJers used the opening created by Miers’ bright idea to advance new agenda items, working, one could imagine with other Republicans. Sorta the Executive Branch equivalent of a Congressional appropriations Christmas tree.

I’ve always thought this guy might be on to something. And along those lines I’d be curious — if it will ever be possible to do — to get that list of 26 or however many firees there are and get it broken down by time. Who got put on when? Who in 2005 and who in 2006?

If you look over the broad scattering of documents thus far released on the Attorney Purge, there’s at least an argument to be made that it unfolds something like this. Someone gets the bright idea, very early in 2005 to can all of the US Attorneys or a lot of them. But for one reason or another the idea gets rejected or just dies a slow bureaucratic death. However it happens, by the end of 2005 the idea’s basically moribund.

But then in early 2006 some problems come up — a rising wave of Republican corruption scandals and declining Republican political fortunes. And the US Attorney Purge idea gets revived — but now with a much more specific focus, with an eye toward the 2006 and 2008 elections. Certain US Attorneys become more of a problem with expanding corruption investigations.

If you’re interested, look at Sampson’s correspondence from early 2006.

Gonzales to stick with false statement on warrantless wiretap program.

“The American people are understandably fearful about another attack like the one we sustained on Sept. 11, 2001. But it is the duty of the commander in chief to lead the country away from the grip of fear, not into its grasp.” — in today’s Post, Charles C. Krulak, commandant of the Marine Corps, 1995 to 1999. Joseph P. Hoar, commander in chief of U.S. Central Command, 1991 to 1994.

The legacy of this administration is frightening to behold, its philosophy of force and violence, its lawlessness.