Attorneygate: Worse, Worser and Worsest
Monica Goodling’s first-rate law school education is on display today in an astonishingly nit-witted but thus far dry-eyed appearance before the House Judiciary Committee regarding her role in the Attorneygate scandal.
Quoting constitutional scholar Martha Stewart, among others, Goodling acknowledged in testimony given under a grant of immunity that she had made a “snap judgment” in weeding out job candidates based on their partisan bona fides.
A “snap judgment” that the senior counsel and White House liaison made numerous times.
In a typical exchange, Goodling said “I don’t believe that I intended to commit a crime.” When pressed to explain that, she acknowledged that “I know I crossed the line of civil service rules.” She later further muddied the waters by adding, “I believe I crossed the line, but I didn’t mean to.”
Just when you think the duplicity of Bush administration hirelings couldn’t get any worse, along comes a Bible-thumping bottom feeder like Goodling.
More here.
19 Responses to “Attorneygate: Worse, Worser and Worsest”
isn’t it odd that the Senate does not have time to have committee hearings on the immigration bill but the house has time for these types of hearings. What do they hope to accomplish in the long run with these hearings.
superdestroyer:
I infer from your question that your answer would be: “To make political points.”
I would answer similarly, but then add the following: There was a systematic effort to profoundly politicize the Justice Department. There was a systemic effort to try to supress Democratic turnout in key states in the run-up to the 2006 elections on the bogus grounds that there was widespread voter fraud. There was a systemic effort to replace career Main Justice employees with political hacks, including a goodly number from a fourth-rate law school where an inordinate number of graduates couldn’t pass the bar exam. There was . . . You get the idea.
I doubt if any career justices employees were replaced. I would assume that when employees left who had been hired by Democratic political appointees, that those who were hired to replace them were hired by Republican political appointees. All political appointees are political. That is the nature of the beast. Want to bet that after Clinton or Obama wins, that all of the Justice Department hires will be card carrying Democrats?
And sorry, after listeing to Mary Frances Berry rant about voter suppression in 2000 and later even though the data did not support her one bit, the Democrats have no crediblity claiming that the Republicans tried to suppress votes. When the Democrats oppose any sort of voter ID requirements, they lose all credibility on voting issues.
A
Republican oversite was spelled ROBERTS(Ks).
superdestroy,
Keep on truckin!
Only the staunch right-wingers think that this affair is a non-issue. The actions of this administration with regards to DoJ are not par for the course.
I wonder if Gonzo has a pet? I hope he doesn’t allow politics to inteferr with a cat.
Now I understand why she crawled under a rock, lawyered up, plead the fifth, and wouldn’t testify without immunity. Because she didn’t think she’d really done anything wrong. Because she just wanted to serve George Bush, our first president who gets his orders straight from God. Who would want to mess with divinity?
Shaun, maybe you truly are not a bigot, but Jesus H Christ you sure do sound like one.
I know, I know…some of your best friends are chistians….
Religious fundamentalism in all its forms (Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and others) all threaten our “Western” way of life.
Shaun, I love your conjugation! I wonder if bottom-thumping Bible-feeder would be equally descriptive?
Holly:
I am shocked! Just shocked!
Iconic Midwest:
I will leave it to you and others as to whether I am a bigot. But I would be remiss not to note in passing that Monica and her fellow disciples from Jesus Christ Law School believed that they were on a misson from God.
Shaun,
It’s the Christian Broadcasting Network University. Don’t make that mistake again!
In case anyone wants to read the law. There is an exception to this but the action has to specifically come from the President.
Ryan, there is one more, very important exception that you don’t mention. The law only applies to personnel action regarding “covered positions,” which are defined as follows:
U.S. Attorneys positions are policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating in character. Thus, they are covered under the exception shown in the bolded language above. You can read the whole law here: 5 USC 2302.
But the positions that she interviewed candidates for were rank and file civil service positions, that are expressly supposed to be decided on a nonpartisan basis. The turnover at Justice has affected many lawyers who were not USA’s. She admitted in her testimony that she violated the civil service laws. That, and not the “Scooter Libby” perjury trap was why she hired a lawyer and told the committee that she would plead the fifth. All of that right wing media buzz was misinformation again!
Al Gore believes he is on a mission to “save the world.” That doesn’t mean he is a loon, does it.
Than again….maybe you are on to something.
But Gore at least uses data which is backed up by the scientific community- he doesn’t think he’s attempting a divine intervention. All we are complaining about is packing the DOJ with fourth-rate,inexperienced, ideologically pure lawyers. We already saw how well this personnel method worked in the CPA under Jerry Bremer, lol.
Monica Goodling is a graduate of Regent University, a place where the only point to their school of law is to produce people like her who believe that they have a mission to reclaim the United States and its government for Christianity. To that end they are blindly loyal to conservative Republicans who apparently will help them towards that goal. While they may not phrase it quite the way I do they are pretty open about most of it. To be critical of them and their goal is not being bigoted against all of Christianity.
Why is it the same people who hate it so much when minorities play the race card, have no compunction about doing the same thing with regards to religion? You can be a Christian and love God or not be a Christian but respect the religious rights of others without wanting the ranks of government filled with evangelicals from 4th rate law schools. Goodling should have been choosing the most competent people for the postion without regard to their ideology, religious views or political affiliation. Not doing so weakens the agency, and we have already seen that DOJ has become quite dysfunctional. How does that reality indicate a bias towards Christians?