When Williams left the Department in April 2006, she sent an email
to Goodling containing an Internet search string and explained:
“This is the lexis nexis search string that I use for AG appointments.”
The string reads as follows:
[First name of a candidate]! and pre/2 [last name of a
candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or
charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra
or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or
controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or
layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict!
or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired
or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or
controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or
firearm!
Full DOJ report here.
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A Hiring Scandal
As told in Just Six Haikus,
Or Maybe Seven.
Jan William’s Email to Monica Goodling
Need loyal hired guns:
Shysters, but no liberals,
So, Google them all!
Brewing Scandal
The public is riled:
Political indictments?
In Justice? Hang them!
Monica Goodling’s Analysis
How to find shysters:
No queers, no liberal types?
I’ll use Jan’s search string!
Monica Goodling’s Congressional Testimony
To find qualified
Lawyers, Mr. Senator?
Use “USA Jobs”!
DOJ Investigation
They searched for hired guns
That passed the loyalty test:
Used William’s search string!
Public Reaction
What? Scandal, you say?
Bush the Lesser is soon gone,
So what do I care?
© 2008 Ipsit Dixit
I feel differently about the hiring of AUSAs and US Attorneys.
US Attorneys know that they are in an inherently political post. (Whether these positions should be part of the regular civil service or not is a separate question.) I see nothing less or more odious about sifting through and firing US Attorneys who are potential political opponents than the more common practice of simply firing all of them at the start of an Administration. I don't think any future Presidents will try to sift rather than just firing- much cleaner a break with less political fallout.
Of course there is a "political" component to being selected as an AUSA too; but, these positions are not subject to Executive whim. They are Civil Servants and their service straddles Administrations.
Acceptable discrimination in selecting US Attorneys can be unacceptable discrimination in selecting civil servants.
I understand GV's take on the situation, and agree…as far as it goes. I posit that enlightened self-interest militates against an excessively or overtly political appointment process for USAs, though.
The power to prosecute, or not, is one of the most important and effective weapons any executive has in its ongoing struggle against malfeasors, misfeasors, and nonfeasors, a.k.a. the bad guys. This tool becomes dulled when prosecutorial discretion is perceived to be used as a tool to further an unrelated objective or to be other than fair. In the extreme, we end up with phenomena such as the OJ Simpson verdict. Less extreme phenomena are the ability of convicted offenders to shrug off the temporary effect of prosecution and to return to jobs or elected office (a lá D.C. Mayor Marion Barry) or to retain effective control and influence (a lá Martha Stewart).
The revelation of ideological screening of USA's feeds into the charges of prosecutions initiated or deferred to further partisan political agendas. As Americans, we want our prosecutors to share our views, but we also demand that they be objective and non-partisan. We know the G.W. Bush administration believed that it was behaving unwisely, if not unlawfully. Otherwise, why would administration officials have lied to Congress? Why not be forthright and unapologetic? GV's comment would have been a good starting point for the GWB administration.
Now, if you will pardon me, I must get back to composing sonnets, haikus, and new scenes of my epic biopic: "BioMan: Part Biological Organism, Part Human, All Nut-Job".
As to what the Bush Administration thought... Who the hell knows?
In this highly politicized environment, where every action is scrutinized and intentionally misrepresented by partisan maggots of all political persuasions, I don't know that one can conclude anything by the decision to shield political tactics from prying eyes. The stronger position is to point out that one should not lie to Congress. But we get ahead of ourselves...
Previous administrations simply fired the prior administration's US Attorneys. Since they got their posts by paying homage to the very type of partisanship that led to their firing, it is hard to feel sorry for them.
However, this is no way to run a Justice Department.
Like re-districting, permitting the seated party to corrupt the framework of government as some sort of prerogative should make all of us uncomfortable. US Attorneys and the commissions that define legislative districts should be stripped from the political process and be treated as basic government functions, insulated from political oversight through the regular civil service.
But then, this suggests that the two parties have no inherent right to lead the US, that they are mere man-made creations without divine origin.
Heresy...
Heresy? Political heresy is like peanut butter combos. When they fail, they are heresies. When they succeed, they are divine. For example: Peanut butter and tuna = heresy, but peanut butter and chocolate = a snack food empire; Peanut butter and mayonnaise = heresy, but peanut butter and banana = a Midwestern favorite. Bill Clinton's welfare reform was more like peanut butter and bananas. So whether the de-politicization of US Attorney offices and the redistricting process is heresy depends on whether or not the result tastes like peanut butter and sauerkraut or peanut butter and jelly. Um…In a metaphorical sense, that is.
Mmmm... peanut butter and sauerkraut.
The thing about taste is that there has to be an advocate.
For example, a family favorite is called "slum gulleon." It is peanut butter, kairo syrup, honey, and butter, mixed together and used on bread, or, if you are my mother, on apple slices. My father ate it as a child and talked it up as we grew up. Consequently, my sister and I, as well as our children, love the stuff.
However, when described to others, I find that they are repulsed. I don't exactly advocate for it since I couldn't care less whether others share my tastes in food or not.
Political change is like slum gulleon in that, however good it is, when you try it, it needs an advocate.
Finding an advocate for "change" that will hurt the opposing party, whether or not good for the body politic, is not all that hard. In the present poisonous atmosphere, I think a slash and burn approach to politics has become all too common. However, "change" that would damage the overwhelming power of the two parties is not likely to find an advocate.
Therein lies the problem.
It is not that peanut butter and sauerkraut is known to taste bad but that we will never know whether it tastes bad or not since no one will advocate for it.
So, considering our morally bankrupt slash'n'burn political parties, perhaps we need someone like Bloomberg to fund an ad campaign.
Actor #1: "Hey! You got the civil service into the redistricting process!"
Actor #2: "Hey! You got the redistricting process into the civil service!"
Narrator: "Decennial redistricting for proportional representation and a professional non-partisan career civil service: two great institutions that go great together!"
Slumgulleon is disgusting and vile.
And yet the paste-like quality keeps the children's mouths occupied for 15 minutes or so... And watching the dog clear it from a kong entertains you greatly.
Wait a minute!
The kong is for the dog?
When I asked the folks at the pet adoption foundation for advice about Bogey whining and barking in his crate, they told me that a kong filled with peanut butter would be a usefull distraction.
I thought they meant it would distract me!
Not that it didn't work. For the time it took me to lick the peanut butter out of the damn thing, I paid no attention whatsoever to the dog's piteous whining.
I'm starting to get a little bored with the peanut butter and rubber taste, so I think maybe I'll try it your way, GV. What have I got too loose?
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