Open Season on Clinton Democrats?

There was an announcement that the roll-call vote at the Democratic Convention will be cut off after the first few states.

Please note that the head of the Arkansas delegation (State number 4 in the roll-call) was murdered on Aug. 13th. This was the day after he allegedly agreed in a telephone call to back the petition of the independent Hillary Rodham Clinton group (that is, the one pushing for the standard procedure to be observed).

Arkansas was Clinton's biggest win in the primaries, with a 70 percent haul (26 percent for Obama). Nearly ALL the superdelegates there also backed Clinton.

That brings into question whether or not this murder was really a coincidence. If the bulk of Arkansas' 47 delegates go to Clinton after Alaska, Alabama, and Arizona, might it not look odd cutting off the roll-call at that point?


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Has Karl Rove declared open season on Democrats?
In just the past two years, Rove has sent the governor of Alabama to prison, replaced eight U.S. Attorneys with political operatives , and helped Donna Brazile’s out-of-the-blue candidate dominate the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries. Now a prominent Arkansas Democrat is shot dead the day after joining a petition drive to nominate Hillary Clinton. Did the G.O.P.'s Machiavellian warlord catch a break, or is there something else going on here?

BY ROSEMARY REGELLO

On the day before the Democratic National Committee announced it would hold a roll-call vote in Denver - with candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton's name on the ballot - the head of the Arkansas delegation was shot and killed at his party headquarters.

Timothy Dale Johnson entered the office of Bill Gwatney around noontime on August 13th, firing a revolver three times, then drove away in his blue pick-up truck. After stopping briefly at the headquarters of the Arkansas State Baptist Convention a few blocks away, Johnson led state troopers on a 30-mile chase and was brought down in a shootout. He died later at a hospital.

While investigators are still searching for a motive in the murder, the timing is suspicious. Also, the location. The tragedy took place in the heart of Clinton country, where the former President presided as governor for 12 years. (The capitol in Little Rock is two blocks from the crime scene.) On February 5th, his wife won big in the primary – 70 percent to Sen. Barack Obama’s 26 percent. The phenomenal 44-point margin surpassed even her 41-point West Virginia rout on May 5th. In addition to the pledged delegate haul, nearly all the state’s superdelegates endorsed the senator from New York.

One of the organizers of a petition to place Clinton's name in nomination has said that on the day before he was killed, Gwatney agreed to back the effort, the only state delegation head to do so. Other Arkansas delegates had also indicated they were ready to support Clinton. As one of the first states called in a roll-call vote, Arkansas could conceivably start a bandwagon effect with its 47-delegates, a prospect that must certainly have crossed some minds, not only in the Obama campaign but within the Republican Party. It appears both groups have worked in concert to make sure Clinton's name doesn't appear on the November ballot.

Whether this high-stakes electioneering has anything to do with the execution-style death of Bill Gwatney is an open question. The former state senator served as the finance chief for Mike Beebe’s successful run for governor in 2006, before taking over as state chair in 2007. Chuck Bartels of the Associated Press reported last week that Gwatney has been credited with “bringing the party together and giving it energy not seen since Bill Clinton left the governor's mansion for the White House in 1992.”

According to another AP story, “At the time of his death, the party was in the midst of expanding its reach into even solidly conservative portions of the state. In an Aug. 5 e-mail newsletter, Gwatney wrote that the party planned to add headquarters in Sebastian, Pope, Washington and Benton counties.” A new headquarters in White County, where Johnson resided, was scheduled to open on August 14th.

The petition organizer, who communicated on condition of anonymity, said in an email, "We got almost the entire [Arkansas] delegation to say they would sign the petition. We had sent out the petitions to everyone, but since his death they got so distracted that we have not received all of them back. I can tell you that all the other state party chairs in the states are fully run by Obama, and they would not even return our phone calls and were against anything to do with our petition."

In spite of these suspect circumstances, New York Times writer Shaila Dewan wrapped up her two-day inquiry into the murder on August 15th, concluding, “The killing had no apparent link to politics.” And Dewan was one of only a handful of national journalists who bothered to fly into Little Rock at all to investigate.

By any means necessary…
Gwatney’s political fortunes eerily replicate the rise (and demise) of another Democrat in the conservative South, Don Siegelman. In 2005, the popular Alabama governor was cruising towards re-election when the U.S. Attorney’s office charged him with bribery, conspiracy and mail fraud. It was not the first time Karl Rove had tried to frame him for wrongdoing. Previous charges had been tossed out by a judge, who found them so half-baked as to not even warrant a trial. Yet like the Ken Starr investigation of the Clintons in the 1990s, the G.O.P. witch-hunt forged ahead with dogged persistence.

Eventually, a few of the new charges stuck. Jury tampering, fabricated testimony and a partisan judge on the bench all chipped in to secure a conviction, and what may have been Rove's nightmare prospect of a Clinton-Siegelman ticket in 2008 was thus nipped in the bud. Judge Mark Everett Fuller even refused the governor's request to remain free on bond pending an appeal, after sentencing him to several years hard labor. If images of Stalin and Siberia leap to mind, then you've got the picture of what happened to this Democratic leader at the hands of the Bush Administration.

Fortunately, while Siegelman languished behind bars, jurists around the country mobilized, and fifty-two former state attorneys general signed a petition calling for his release. Last February, a whistleblower went prime-time and described Rove’s role in the scam during an episode of Sixty Minutes. (Naturally, the local CBS affiliate in Alabama experienced technical difficulties and couldn't air the broadcast there). By the end of March, the country's highest-ranking political prisoner was no longer incarcerated.

Besides the politically motivated Siegelman prosecution, Rove is under investigation for the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys back in December 2006. (Among the replacement federal prosecutors was Rove protégé Tim Griffin, who took Bud Cummins' job in Little Rock, Arkansas.) Moreover, he's implicated in a plan to sabotage Hillary Clinton's 2008 campaign for president. The G.O.P. organized massive crossover voting drives throughout the country to help Barack Obama (particularly in states with caucuses or open primaries) and initiated yet another disenfranchisement scheme in Florida - this time to deprive the New York senator of both momentum and delegates early on in the race. You may recall that major broadcast networks, newspapers and internet news services all suppressed their coverage of the January 29th vote, in which Clinton scored a 17-point victory. Rove's covert operation was carried out with the help of an inside contact, Donna Brazile, who sits on the DNC. Rules and Bylaws Committee.

Was the G.O.P. worried about a Clinton resurgence in Denver? It seems both plausible and likely. Initially, when the candidate endorsed Obama on June 4th, Gwatney did the same. But according to the same New York Times story cited above, Obama and his campaign have snubbed Arkansas since the end of the primaries by not setting up shop there for the fall campaign, even though they have operations in other states with half as many electoral votes and far fewer Democrats. (On August 4th, nine days before the tragedy, Gwatney informed the local press corps that the Obama camp had just contacted him about opening an office.)

How Rove himself has reacted to changing circumstances - or even if he knew Gwatney and other Arkansas delegates were supporting the petition drive - is unknown. Obama's tanking poll numbers has recently led to speculation that the novelty of his candidacy has worn its welcome with voters. Try as the G.O.P. may to keep the first-term senator propped up in the public eye, his downward spiral could end in collapse by the time the convention roll-call takes place. Hoping to avoid that situation, the campaign announced the endorsement of several more Republicans, including Rita Hauser, a member of President Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. And when the candidate revealed his choice of Joe Biden as VP on August 22nd , influential G.O.P. Senators Hagel and Lugar immediately expressed approval.

While the murder of a top party official and head of a staunchly pro-Clinton delegation has been dismissed as the random act of a kook, this calculating and at at times malevolent behavior from partisan actors like Rove suggests an alternative theory of the crime should be considered.

Manchurian Candidate
Unfortunately dead assailants make for short murder probes. Moreover, like the tepid response to the John Edwards mistress/love child bombshell first reported by the National Enquirer last year, the mainstream press coverage of the August 13th tragedy has been largely M.I.A. Five days into the investigation, for instance, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had still not disclosed that Johnson was a registered Republican and member of the Cleburne County Gun Club.

Club manager Ken Buster told the ArkansasTimes (a progressive weekly) that Johnson was a quiet, unobtrusive man who competed in high-powered rifle competitions and volunteered his time at the facility, performing maintenance tasks. “I never heard him discuss politics,” Buster said. “I never heard him discuss any derogatory statements about anyone anywhere, any time. He was one of those people that would blend into the background."

Johnson's neighbors in Searcy described him as a loner with a dog and a vegetable garden. Some say he was timid but not unkind, while others found him spooky. One neighbor noted that he was a military veteran. Meanwhile, an informant for the Arkansas Times said Johnson had been a client at Wilbur Mills Treatment Center, which provides drug and alcohol rehabilitation, as well as mental health services.

Initial reports that he was fired from his job at a Conway Target store 45 miles from his home turned out to be untrue. According to Brie Heath, a Target spokeswoman, Johnson worked in a stockroom, boasted a clean record, and had no issues until the very early morning of the murder. During that particular graveyard shift, he wrote graffiti on a wall -

“This hall is too goddamn narrow” and “Target is run by dumb jocks and sorority whores.” At first, identity of the culprit eluded supervisor, causing Johnson to return to the wall and sign his name.

"This was different behavior for him" Heath said. "The manager asked him if he needed to talk. At that point, he turned in his badge and left the building."

Besides arranging his own job termination, Johnson appears to have had no personal connection to the victim. According to the secretary at the Democratic headquarters, after he entered the reception lobby and Gwatney inadvertently stepped out of his office, the two men seemed to be meeting for the first time. Thereafter, Johnson pulled out his revolver and fired the shots.

Although not reported in the news coverage, Gwatney didn't work a regular shift at the Democratic Party headquarters. He owned three auto dealerships (two in Little Rock, one in Jacksonville) and was in the office that Wednesday signing checks. Either Johnson's timing was coincidental or the product of a tip he received beforehand.

The assailant's two sisters have issued a press release stating it was “beyond our understanding” that their brother would want to kill Gwatney. Detectives did find two key chains with the Gwatney auto dealership emblem and keys at Johnson’s home. They also discovered a Post-it note with Gwatney’s name and phone number written on it.

On August 19th, a spokesman for the police department told reporters the keys did not fit any locks at the dealerships or cars for sale. "They're old keys. They probably don't go to anything anymore," said Lt. Terry Hastings. And the phone number did not match any of those used by Gwatney. The Little Rock Police Department later announced it would not subpoena Johnson’s medical records. “Best that we leave the stuff requiring expert medical knowledge to the experts,” Hastings said.

A computer in the house has been sent to an F.B.I. field office, according to its special agent on the scene, Steve Frazier. (Like the Department of Justice, the F.B.I. has operated under a shroud of suspicion during the Bush Administration, most recently attacked by G.O.P. Rep. Charles Grassley and other Senate Judiciary Committee members over its botched handling of the Anthrax investigation.)

Also siezed: a bottle of the antidepressant drug Effexor, 13 rifles and a handgun. The revolver and another weapon were found in Johnson's truck. The Arkansas Times has published an itemized list of firearms and other property.

This is where the plot thickens. The lack of ties to the victim, the diversionary evidence like the dealership keys, and the psychological profile of the killer all dovetail into a "Manchurian candidate" scenario. The term was coined by a 1959 novel of the same name and refers to a covert intelligence operation in which an unwitting third party carries out a political murder. Using drugs and hypnotism, the assassin is brainwashed and taught a set of carefully orchestrated steps laid out by his handlers. The script is then stored in the unconscious until the window of opportunity opens, when it's activated by hypnotic suggestion. In essence, the killer executes his crime while in a trance.

Applying this modus operandi to the Gwatney killing may be speculative but not without context. The Bush Administration and U.S. military leaders have demonstrated a deep interest in mind control techniques, as the rendition program and abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo revealed in recent years. At the annual convention of the American Psychology Association held in San Franciso last year, many caregivers accused the C.I.A. of using brainwashing techniques on detainees. If no one within the press or law enforcement has linked Johnson to operatives within the Republican Party, the CIA, or other entity hovering outside the bounds of the law, it may because they're not looking very hard. If Johnson was recruited by a covert operative, it would most likely have occurred at the rifle range.

Of the little chatter on the blogs about the slaying, most commenters point to a violent culture made vulnerable by loose gun control laws as the probable cause, not a conspiracy. Others have fingered talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh, arguing that the country's daily dose of hate-filled diatribes directed at liberal-minded organizations may be pushing individuals to commit vigilante acts. Along these lines, the conservative New Hampshire Union-Leader offered its own helpful insight with an op-ed entitled "Are Democrats being targeted for being unarmed?"

"Looks like the demented are sane enough to have identified a new place to safely assault unarmed victims: local Democratic Party offices," the piece illuminated.

In Little Rock, former President Clinton urged friends and loved ones at Gwatney's funeral service to keep the Arkansas Democrat alive by remembering the good things he did. "Make a list of what you were grateful for in Bill Gwatney's life." Clinton said. "He was a better golfer than I was. I am not grateful for that. But he seemed to genuinely like it if I hit a good shot, which is a sign of grace." (John Brummett's column on the funeral is also worth a look.)

For her part, Sen. Clinton attended the service but did not speak, an indication that Sen. McCain isn't the only one with a "cone of silence" problem these days. So much for 44-point victories.

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