From the Things We Already Knew Department:
Justice Department officials over the last six years illegally used “political or ideological” factors to hire new lawyers into an elite recruitment program, tapping law school graduates with conservative credentials over those with liberal-sounding resumes, a new report found Tuesday.
The blistering report, prepared by the Justice Department’s inspector general, is the first in what will be a series of investigations growing out of last year’s scandal over the firings of nine United States attorneys. It appeared to confirm for the first time in an official examination many of the allegations from critics who charged that the Justice Department had become overly politicized during the Bush administration.
“Many qualified candidates” were rejected for the department’s honors program because of what was perceived as a liberal bias, the report found. Those practices, the report concluded, “constituted misconduct and also violated the department’s policies and civil service law that prohibit discrimination in hiring based on political or ideological affiliations.”
Expect a few limp defenses from the usual suspects, but this will be difficult to spin away. More here.
Zifnab
That’s ok, because the media will just refuse to report on it. I mean, who gives a crap about the Justice Department anyway, right?
Snark Based Reality
Just stopping by to quote the failure. :P
Love the site.
Snark Based Reality
BTW, is it even worth the effort to spin that away? It’s not like congress will do anything about it. Better at this point for the Bush administration to say “So what?” and ignore the topic.
jake
Here’s the spin. Ready?
“Braaawk! See!? The DOJ has a liberal bias! Braaaawk!”
Hey, I didn’t say it would make any sense.
RSA
This just makes me mad. (Okay, just angrier than I’ve been before.) The Bush administration is more than a Republican crime syndicate–it’s an infectious disease that cripples and deforms everything it touches.
Dave
The only way Bush could show more contempt for this nation is if he literally wiped his ass with the Constitution.
leo
Just goes to show that the people in the Bush Administration were nothing but a bunch of political thugs.
Brachiator
Good thing that this issue was thoroughly brought out and discussed in the primary debates.
Wait. It wasn’t? Damn.
But more seriously, the ideological vetting of positions in the military and the Justice Department is one of the most despicable acts of a generally reprehensible administration. All these people know is Cronies and Loyalists.
JenJen
I’m sure Charlie Black and Senator McCain are totally outraged and have already issued a statement.
Right?
Joe Beese
We can expect President Obama to prosecute these illegal acts.
Can’t we?
Dennis - SGMM
According to the piece I heard on NPR this morning, these were violations of Civil Service rules. Most of the people who committed the violations have left the administration and are no longer subject to discipline under the aforementioned rules – which is probably why they were so carefree about breaking them. They’re going to get a pass no matter who’s president.
Echo without Bunnies or Men
Limp defense exhibit A – Clinton did it too!
Limp defense exhibit B – Clinton did it too!
Limp defense exhibit C – Clinton did it too!
wash rinse repeat
Jay C
What, like this Adminsitration has been doing since, oh… January 2001? To every single f******* claim of “politicization” by any critic?
THis whole criminal regime has operated – from the beginning – on the simple principle of “our rules, for our term, so f*** you” And, sad to say, it is hugely unlikely that anything even approaching the appearance of “justice” will ever be exacted from any member of this corrupt gang of ideologues and incompetents. Ever.
The Moar You Know
How cruel of you to fuck up Joe Beese’s day with facts.
And it’s not just the Justice Department, it’s the whole fucking government that’s infected with the Bush/Dominionist virus; Obama’s first term is, sadly, going to consist mostly of repairing the damage and getting these appointees out.
Tiparillo
Echo wins
nightjar
New Disease
Bush Outrage Outrage Syndrome or BOSS.
The good news is there is a cure
The bad news it won’t be available till 1-20-09.
dnA
I’m aware of an internet tradition of staffing the DOJ with politically sympathetic lawyers, but this strikes me as different precisely because people were held to partisan standards with regards to specific cases.
Also ideology was held above competence. I certainly would like a president Obama to hire lawyers for the Civil Rights Division who care about voting rights, and those will tend to be more liberal than conservative. But I don’t want them to hire incompetent lawyers just because they’re liberal, and can’t tell the law from their own political bias.
RSA
From the report:
“Violated federal law” appears four times in the report, in various forms. Unfortunately, with the fox guarding the henhouse, I don’t see much coming of this. Gee, I wonder what would happen to me if I violated federal law?
Xenos
The problem was not favoring sympathetic lawyers, which is contrary to the spirit of the civil service rules but seems fair game given the modern spoils system. The problem is that they mostly hired on the basis of ideological purity and loyalty.
In order to get the most loyal, they deliberately hired the most incompetent – people who could never get such prestigious work honestly. Thus, the lousy legal advice that has had much of the executive branch without a clue as to what the law is.
This conspiracy of goldbrickers will be easy to break. At least half of them will quit before an Obama or McCain administration takes over, the other half will wilt under the demands of performing at high professional standards, and will promptly get themselves properly fired without there being a need to have a political housecleaning.
28 Percent
You do not understand but that is no surprise as “None are so blind as those whom will not see” (Jeremiah 5:21). The country is best served if good Christians are guidign it and that is what was looked for so there is no problem. After all, no one is fully human unless they know GOD so it makes NO SENSE to hire someone who is not fully human that is what “best qualified” means LOL GET A CLUE AND STOP BLIEEVING THE LIES!!!
DUDACKATTACK!!!
This might be news today for the DOJ but cronyism for Bush loyalists old news for Iraq -qualifications be dammed.
ThymeZone
Yeah, but the important thing is whether our candidate is being nice enough to Muslims.
Since he isn’t, I guess another 4-8 years of this systematic destruction of government infrastructure is okay with everybody.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
So if you were concerned about the environment, it didn’t matter if you went to a first-tier school, you got junked in favor of Regnery and Liberty University. (Are they even third-tier?)
“At least half of them will quit before an Obama or McCain administration takes over, the other half will wilt under the demands of performing at high professional standards, and will promptly get themselves properly fired without there being a need to have a political housecleaning.”
Yeah, that’s the ticket. Make the f**kers humiliate themselves by putting them up against lawyers from quality law schools that weren’t founded by a televangelist.
Keith
To paraphrase Nixon, “it’s not a crime if the President doesn’t enforce it.” Sad but true.
Garrigus Carraig
I CAN HAZ WOOLVZ?
RSA
I think that should be “Regent”, which is fourth tier, according to US News. (Given that, it might as well be Regnery, I suppose.) The law school at Liberty doesn’t seem to be ranked, perhaps because it doesn’t have full national accreditation.
Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
“I think that should be “Regent”, which is fourth tier, according to US News.”
You’re right. All these Potemkin institutions that (faux universities, faux publishers, faux news) start to blur together in one’s mind.
I saw Regent was only fourth tier. Boggles one mind how Monica Goodling could be at such a senior position in the DoJ: no wonder she looked like a deer in the headlights during the congressional hearings about the US DA firings. Oh, right: it’s the Bush administration. Mediocrity is encouraged, don’t want that uppity elitism and competence.
Just Some Fuckhead
lmfao
Eli Rabett
So who will send a complaint to the bar association asking that these clowns be censured?
TenguPhule
CIA sanctions. Only way to be sure.
erghammer
Yes, these guys are total A-holes. But there will come a day when the Dems are in charge of things and they will do the same thing. So everyone should spare the righteous indignation unless you’re prepared to call bullshit on your own side too.