We all knew this was happening, but it's interesting to see an insider from the Bush administration admit it. Yesterday's LA Times carries an OpEd piece from Joseph D. Rich - the former head of the voting section of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

I spent more than 35 years in the department enforcing federal civil rights laws — particularly voting rights. Before leaving in 2005, I worked for attorneys general with dramatically different political philosophies — from John Mitchell to Ed Meese to Janet Reno. Regardless of the administration, the political appointees had respect for the experience and judgment of longtime civil servants.

Under the Bush administration, however, all that changed. Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

It has notably shirked its legal responsibility to protect voting rights.

This is part of a pattern of the current administration working to suppress minority votes, and to make sure that "their people" are over-represented in the ballot boxes. To the best of my knowledge, though, this is the first time that anyone involved has fessed up in public. Read this in conjunction with the current flap over the US Attorney firings, and you'll see that the firings are directly related to this crusade to manipulate the vote in the US. This story is not going to go away, at least if we all work to make sure it doesn't.