The Huffington Post has a story on the 2012 campaign fundraising arms race that is well under way, and how the Democratic Party is pursuing someone who can play the role of Karl Rove. Not as a political operative, mind you, but as someone who can raise huge amounts of unregulated money to be spent by outside groups in hopes of matching the right wing machine that flexed its muscles in 2010.

The story of the eight US Attorneys who were involved in public corruption investigations centered on elected officials and subsequently fired has ensnared Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and New Mexico Reps. Pete Domenici and Heather Wilson -- now, as details resurface about the 2002 firing of a US Attorney investigating lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the trail leads to the office of Karl Rove.

Los Angles Times story outlining Abramoff's relationship with the White House and Karl Rove with particular detail to an Abramoff client, the country of Malaysia. And as with almost every scandal story that comes out today, DeLay and his associates are connected to Abramoff's web of deceit.

Lu Dubose, co-author with Jan Reid of The Hammer Comes Down: The Nasty, Brutish and Shortened Political Life of Tom DeLay, has a good piece over at TomPaine.com summarizing the DeLay

Tom DeLay just sent a nine-page letter to his GOP constituents, claiming that it is "absolutely untrue" that he was a "close personal friend" of Jack Abramoff's. Hmmm...all those trips, all those gifts (remember the Three Tenors concert)? We suppose it's all in the definition of what Tom DeLay considers a friend...

Back in 2003, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released some 1.5 million email messages that it collected as part of its investigation of Enron's price-gouging of California consumers. The press pounced on some of the choicer bits, but this is truly the gift that keeps giving.

President George W. Bush took an interview on Fox news as an opportunity to defend his great friend, Tom DeLay, reports the Los Angeles Times:

I hope that he will [return] because I like him. And plus, when he's over there, we got our votes through the House.

The Washington Post's Jeffrey Smith has this as a lede (emphasis added):

Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff bragged two years ago that he was in contact with White House political aide Karl Rove on behalf of a large, Bermuda-based corporation that wanted to avoid incurring some taxes and continue receiving federal contracts, according to a written statement by President Bush's nominee to be deputy attorney general.

LA Times headline: Lobbyist Tied to DeLay Indicted.

Public Campaign Action Fund called on Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-PA) to cancel his big-money fundraiser featuring presidential advisor Karl Rove tonight, and criticized him for placing special interest fundraising above the interests of his constituents. Rove, who is embroiled in an a scandal regarding his role in leaking the identity of Valerie Plame, is scheduled to attend a fundraiser for Gerlach tonight just a block away from the White House at 1700 Pennsylvania Avenue.