Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

A lot of people missed the “60 Minutes” report last week on allegations by a Republican political operative in Alabama named Dana Jill Simpson that Karl Rove and the Bush Justice Dept. rigged the charges against Alabama’s popular former Democratic governor, Don Siegelman, for which he is currently serving time in prison.

This segment of “60 Minutes” was literally blacked out in Alabama, a state that is under the grip of the GOP the way Stalinists once controlled Russia. But no one has asked why CBS chose to run this story against the Oscars, the most watched telecast of the year.

After the “60 Minutes” ran the segment last week, the House Democrats released the transcript of Simpson’s sworn testimony before the House Judiciary Committee:

1. Ms. Simpson stated under oath that she adheres to and stands by the statements in her May 21, 2007, affidavit. (Pages 85-86) She testified: “What I understood, or what I believed Mr. Canary to be saying, was that he had had this ongoing conversation with Karl Rove about Don Siegelman, and that Don Siegelman was a thorn to them and basically he was going to – he had been talking with Rove. Rove had been talking with the Justice Department, and they were pursuing Don Siegelman as a result of Rove talking to the Justice Department at the request of Bill Canary.”

2. Ms. Simpson described a 2005 conversation with Rob Riley in which Mr. Riley stated that, in late 2004, Karl Rove had contacted the Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice to press for further prosecution of Don Siegelman, and had also stated that the case would be assigned to a federal judge who “hated” Mr. Siegelman and who would “hang Don Siegelman.”

Update: Just to prove that that one’s point of view depends on where one sits, Trish has rightly pointed out that “60 Minutes” only ran against the Oscars here on the West Coast.