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Scrivener's Error| null | |
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Scrivener's Error |
Law and reality in publishing (seldom the same thing) from the author's side of the slush pile, with occasional forays into military affairs, censorship and the First Amendment, legal theory, and anything else that strikes me as interesting. |
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Once upon a time, the US government was so corrupt that it made Chicago hiring practices look honest. That was about two years ago, when Monica Goodling, Esq. was busy trying to simultaneously surpass the Grant, Pendergast, and first Daley administrations at political patronage hiring at the Department of Justice:
In sum, we concluded that the evidence showed that Goodling violated both federal law and Department policy, and therefore committed misconduct, when she considered political or ideological affiliations in hiring decisions for candidates for career positions within the Department. In particular, the evidence showed that she considered political or ideological affiliations in deciding several waiver requests from interim U.S. Attorneys, in promoting several candidates for career positions, and in disapproving a candidate for an [Executive Office for United States Attorneys] career [Senior Executive Service] position.
Office of Professional Responsibility, Department of Justice, An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General (28 Jul 2008) at 45–46 (PDF, 146pp). And if you need any demonstration that the "War on Terror" is for some children in the Bush Administration little more than political opportunism, consider this:
In sum, we concluded that Goodling prevented [Executive Office for United States Attorneys] from selecting an experienced career [Assistant United States Attorney] to handle counterterrorism issues because of his and his wife's political affiliation. As a result, a much less experienced, but politically acceptable, attorney was assigned this important responsibility.
Id. at 50. Combine this last with the nonsense at GITMO...
But Monica Goodling is going to do just fine. Since she resigned from the DoJ, she isn't subject to DoJ discipline, and as reprehensible as her actions and motivations were they probably don't rise to the criminal level. The Virginia bar, to which she was admitted after graduating from Regent University's bottom-tier law school in 1999, isn't going to take any action against her; it never does in cases involving mere abuse of office (and in that, it is not unique). Within a year or two, she is going to be held up as a martyr for "family values in law," because even if McCain is elected he can't afford to let Jay Sekulow's mad, medieval vision of the unity of church and state control hiring practices at the Department of Justice. She's going to get paid a pile of cash to tell all in about three or four years, either by hosting something for CBN (which, not coincidentally, essentially owns Regent University) or in a book in which she claims that she merely crossed the line in her zealousness to make America great.
And in the meantime, Rome is burning.
Labels: civil rights, culture, jurisprudence, law practice, politics
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