aww, say no more, eh... *wink wink nudge nudge*...

A look at the hyper-Christianist fox guarding -- er, investigating -- Karl Rove's hen house; a fellow who wants his cake:

"From 2001-2003, Mr. Bloch served as Associate Director and then Deputy Director and Counsel to the Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Justice, where he worked on First Amendment cases, regulations, intergovernmental outreach, and programmatic initiatives," Bloch's biography at OSC notes.

Three years ago, the New York Blade reported, "Background information that Bloch submitted to a Senate committee during his confirmation hearing for his current job, and news reports about him from a Kansas newspaper, present a picture of a devout Catholic and staunch social conservative."

"On a Senate disclosure form required for his confirmation, Bloch lists the Claremont Institute, an ultra-conservative think tank in California, which boasts of 'fighting the gay rights movement' as one of its mottos, as one of the organizations with which he has been affiliated as a research fellow," Lou Chibbaro Jr. wrote for the New York Blade in 2004.

And eat it too:

"I don't really want to talk about that," Block told the LA Times. "I think it is an intrusion into my privacy … for people to have an interest — a prurient interest, I would add — into whether I am a religious conservative or not. I think it is offensive and uncalled for."

If I may cut to the chase: Setting aside, for now anyway, the taxpayers' right to know about faith-based initiatives and whether certain well-positioned zealots in our government are imposing their odious and certainly religious agendas on the rest of us and on OUR DIME, this is about the "loyal Bushies" protecting their own. If The Office of Special Counsel can intercept a Congressional inquiry into that which smolders of Karl Rove's malfeasance, and claim some kind of jurisdictional priority, a legal fight between Congress and the OSC will slow considerably, if not preclude, any chance of more truths ever seeing the light of day.

To wit:

Critics say Bloch has been soft on Republicans in the past, issuing warning letters instead of taking a hard line in some high-profile cases. They also say that Bloch's investigation is compromised because internal complaints about his management of the Office of Special Counsel have led to a probe by the Office of Personnel Management — putting him in the awkward position of investigating an administration that is investigating him.