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Friday, May 11, 2007

The Republican Monica

The New York Times offers more information about the damage done at DOJ by Monica Goodling:
Ms. Goodling, now 33, arrived at the department at the start of the Bush administration after working as an opposition researcher for the Republican National Committee during the 2000 presidential campaign.

Her legal experience was limited; she had graduated in 1999 from Regent University School of Law, which was founded by Pat Robertson. Deeply religious and politically conservative, Ms. Goodling seemed to believe that part of her job was to bring people with similar values into the Justice Department, several former colleagues said.

---snip---

In one case, Ms. Goodling told a federal prosecutor in the District of Columbia that she was not signing off on an applicant who had graduated from Howard University Law School, and then worked at the Environmental Protection Agency.

“He appeared, based on his résumé, to be a liberal Democrat,” Ms. Goodling told Jeffrey A. Taylor, the acting United States attorney in Washington, according to two of the department employees who asked not to be named. “That wasn’t what she was looking for.”

Mr. Taylor ultimately found a way to go around Ms. Goodling in hiring the applicant.

She appeared to take similar concerns about political leanings into account when making decisions about promotions and special assignments for Justice Department lawyers.

Robert Nicholson, a career lawyer from the Southern District of Florida, was asked some unusual questions when he applied for a post at the Justice Department headquarters, according to two department lawyers, including Margaret M. Chiara, the former chief prosecutor Western Michigan.

“Which Supreme Court justice do you most admire and why? Which legislator do you most admire and why? And which president do you most admire and why?” Mr. Nicholson was asked by Ms. Goodling, according to Ms. Chiara and the other lawyer, who asked not to be named.

Mr. Nicholson, who did not get the job, did not dispute the account, but he declined to comment, citing the investigation of Ms. Goodling.
How many Monica Goodlings are still working for our government? How many of these arrogant, narrow-minded creatures, full of contempt for anything and anyone who dares to believe differently than them, are lurking in the halls of power, ready to sabotage our country?

It's disgusting. Hey, war on terror! War on terror! War on terror! What happens if DOJ messes up an investigation because of idiots like Monica Goodling, what then? They just say, "Oops, sorry, we didn't mean for that to happen, we were just purging DOJ of Democrats and well, Republicans who disagree with us, and we didn't like the guy in the green shirt 'cause he has snaggly teeth?" It's as if our government has been turned over to infants.

We've known for a long time now that the religious right has created its own funhouse institutions like Regent University in order to imbue their theocratic ambitions with legitimacy. They may have some very skilled professors at Regent for all I know, but that's not the point. The problem is the mission, which is to take over and dominate this country and this society on behalf of one particular subset of one religion. Goodling was quite clearly advancing that mission, and if she and others hadn't gone too far, we might never have known about her.

Goodling just happens to be the public face of the theocrats' agenda right now, thanks to some events that must have seemed unlikely to her. It was only a little more than a year ago, according to the article, that she and Kyle Sampson were given greater authority to hire and fire political appointees other than US attorneys. One problem with buying your own side's spin is that you leave yourself vulnerable, in this case believing that the GOP would hang on to Congress. Surprise, Monica! Wonder what she felt like the morning after the election?

John Dean wrote a book called "Worse Than Watergate." That may prove to be a very prophetic title. These people need to be fully held to account, and if appropriate, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

The United State government doesn't belong to Monica Goodling, Pat Robertson, Kyle Sampson, Alberto Gonzalez or George W. Bush, it belongs to all the people. And we want it back.

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