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TechnoratiThe Partisan Injustice at Justice
"What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?"
I have gone forward and back for a while now trying to figure out where today's rant should begin, but I find that I cannot get past that question. It was posed by Monica Goodling, an aide to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, to job seekers at the Department of Justice.
"What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?"
Is it me, or doesn't she sound less like a job interviewer than like an adolescent girl splayed out on her bed, giggling with her girlfriend about some hottie actor they both adore? I mean, what, exactly, was an applicant expected to say?
"I adore his strong chin"?
"That crinkly smile really turns me on"?
"I can't resist the manly twinkle in his eyes when he mispronounces 'nuclear'"?
Presumably, Goodling is somewhere doodling the president's name and hers inside Valentine hearts while she awaits her fate. You see, she faces possible professional sanctions for violations of both civil service law and the DOJ's own policy. As detailed last week in a Justice Department report, she and other aides systematically schemed to fill non-political positions with Bush loyalists.
It wasn't just that she asked a question that would have been more at home on the cover of Tiger Beat. It was that she passed over a respected prosecutor with almost 20 years of experience for an important counterterrorism job because his wife was active in Democratic politics, hiring instead a Republican with three years' experience. And that she denied one applicant on the suspicion - the "suspicion," mind you - that she was a lesbian. And that she jettisoned yet another because he was a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. And that she ran Internet searches to determine applicants' political views. And that one of her interview questions was: "Why are you a Republican?"
It goes on. And on. Goodling's priority was not experience, talent or competence. Rather, she was looking for, as she put it in a note, applicants who were suitably conservative on "god, guns + gays."
Yes, every president is entitled to fill political positions with loyalists. But these were not, I repeat, political positions. Rather they were, or were supposed to have been, career, non-partisan jobs: immigration judges, assistant U.S. attorneys, trial attorneys.
The problem is, in this administration, there's no such thing as a non-partisan job. For them, the campaign never ends.
Just last month another report found applicants for DOJ internships and honors programs being turned away for political reasons. Then there's Rajiv Chandrasekaran's book, Imperial Life in the Emerald City, which recounts how people interviewing to work in the Green Zone in Iraq were asked their opinion of Roe v. Wade, among other conservative litmus tests.
What does abortion politics have to do with turning on the electricity in Baghdad? Hey, you got me.
This administration prizes ideological purity above ability. As a result, it has driven the presidency off a cliff, the country following close behind. These are not people who came to government to govern. No, these are true believers who came to government to institutionalize true belief, to make it permanent as a stain.
There is something Stepford, something robotic and chilling, in the glassy-eyed, ends-justifies-the-means faith of these young Bush aides in their own righteousness. Forget credibility. Forget competence. Just give us your answer, please: "What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?"
It is a telling question. Apparently, these people have forgotten or never even knew: It wasn't George W. Bush they were supposed to serve.
--Leonard Pitts Jr.
© 2008 Miami Herald Media Company
9 Comments so far
Show AllThey have no shame and believe in what they do. Their behavior is irrational and bizare. If she or they are going to be punished it has to be an effective pinishment. A type of punishment that forces the mind to consider consequences of actions.
MilitantLiberal....
Here are a couple of examples of why it is important to have a non-partisan justice department....
http://www.alternet.org/rights/78407/
http://blog.cleveland.com/plaindealer/2008/07/office_raids_kept_secret_even.html
How do you seperate the innocent from the nefarious when there is the suspcion that partisan politics has been used to remove elected officials from office.
What happens when they break down your door and you are whisked away, just another dissapeared terrorist. Where is the justice there...???
Dealing with the IRS, it has always been "guilty until proven innocent" Now if we also have to deal with the whole justice system in this manner, we are truly screwed... Is your house in the way of a condo-development...??? Do you want to organize the workers at your workplace...??? Don't like the way your elected officials run the country....????
No problem, no warrant, no worrys about investigations.... just whisk away your problem and the "right" justice will be served.
Enjoy your stay here.... KCT
I think a big part of what the administration was doing, was seeking other ideologues who shared their vision of breaking the Federal Government apart. These Neo-cons seek to tear down something they oppose. And through crony corporatism and incompetence, they have succeeded, by design, to break down our government.
MilitantLiberal
Who is going to do the prosecution of the "administration's war crimes and unconstitutional usurpations"? The very same folks given jobs by Ms. Goodling. It won't be the Federal prosecutors fired by Gonzales, and Pig Boy Rove. If the Executive branch has the Judicial branch in its pocket, they can run the country with impunity. And that is exactly what they are doing.
karl rove has had a homosexual crush on bush since they first met
son of a nazi servicing the alcoholic son of a nazi facilitator
how sick is that
throw in schwarzenegger the other son of a nazi and you start to wonder - hey who won that second world war
Militant Liberal:
I am a retired veteran of the Dept of Justice. Those positions DID have civil service protection, or were supposed to have it. It was that very CS status that was defiled by the pretty lady from the mail-order law school. I agree with you that other high crimes and misdemeanors are serious and deserve more active correction than they have received, but the civil service system is an important element of honest, effective government.
I'm tired of hearing about this trivial mini-scandal, which vanishes before the Bush administration's war crimes and unconstitutional usurpations, even from Leonard Pitts. So Bush filled partisan positions with partisan appointees. BIG DEAL! If Congress really wants to change things, give those positions civil service protection. But that would be....GASP...a real reform!
Bush has not driven the presidency off the cliff. The presidency has driven America off the cliff.
A system of governance divided into three separate branches which depends upon checks and balances to remain independent of each other will always be jeopardized by those who see benefit in usurping the powers of one the branches to the benefit of another.
America has moved too far right to call itself a democracy. We (the people) have encouraged a "ruling class" to unbalance the system that was devised by our founders, to the service of corporate interests .
The Executive Branch once served by operating within the laws established by congressional action. That is no longer the case. The Executive Branch has been practicing law of its own in real terms but for a short period, but long enough to realize that if the judicial process could also be unbalanced as well, a permanently modification to a system that approximated a monarchy or dictatorship could be realized.
It was all too obvious. That Americans are not taking to the streets in real protest is indicative of the shift in perception of what democracy means to most people today.
We are frightened, uneducated, ineffectual, misinformed consumers waiting to be diverted by the newest toy or celebrity gossip. We have no real grasp of how "representative" democracy now equates directly to corporate representation... and the ruling class wants to maintain that new paradigm.
Usurp the powers of Congress. Undermine the judicial process to support party ideology. Allow the executive to make laws and enforce the self-serving interpretation of those laws as a tool for increasing power and serving greed.
This is the United States of America... of the corporation, by the corporation and for the corporation. The internet is our last best hope at opposing those who wantonly destroy what a democratic government once offered as a beacon to its people and the world.
This treasonus betrayal of American Justice is a scarlet stain that not even Lady Macbeth can remove. We will carry this rotting albatross about our necks for the rest of the New American Century.