In a word: marketing

The more we learn about the White House’s purge of United States attorneys, the more a single thread runs through it: the Bush administration’s campaign to transform the minor problem of voter fraud into a supposed national scourge.

That's what the attorney mess is all about, really:  the attempt to sell a lie.  Once the administration got started down this road, it couldn't stop.   So now we all face the costly and time-consuming consequences of a White House effort to convince the American public of yet another lie.

After a five-year crackdown, the Justice Department has not turned up any evidence that voter fraud actually is a problem. Only 86 people were convicted of voter fraud crimes as of last year — most of them Democrats and many on trivial, trumped-up charges.

The Bush administration was so determined to pursue this phantom scourge that it deported a legal Florida resident back to his native Pakistan for mistakenly filling out a voter registration card when he renewed his driver’s license. And it may well have decided to fire most of the eight federal prosecutors because they would not play along.