Prometheus 6

No one is surprised by this second of four reports documenting the coup at the Justice Department. I want to say "attempted coup" but all those illegal hires are still in their nice permanent places...almost as immune as Clarence Thomas but less visible.

I am surprised the Bush adminstration still has surrogates loyal enough to make surprisingly foolish statements in public. Or at least on PBS...maybe them believe Conservative rhetoric that no one watches it. In this case it's one David Rivkin, trying to convince us this was an isolated incident (Black folks, the sneer your mental voice used when you read that was quite appropriate).

But this report says nothing about the eight U.S. attorneys being fired or replaced, who of course were political appointees, and that's perfectly appropriate to apply a political criteria.

This report very regrettably points two or three people acting wrongfully, dealing -- injecting political criteria in consideration of career employees, violates department regulations, violates federal law, and, quite frankly, is rather sad.

It, frankly, stuns me that she didn't and, again, acted in this way....Having said that, the system worked.

Let's consider that last statement. The system worked. If so, it's only because they pressed too hard. This is what David Iglesias said on the same show:

Now, what broke this story initially was our forced terminations, but I don't think any of us really would have guessed at that time that the tentacles of this politicization would reach in all the places that it did. So, unfortunately, I was not surprised after I read through it.

If they hadn't fired these folk who were visible enough to be listened to when they spoke out they'd have gotten away clean. After all, it came out two years ago that the Justice Department gutted the Civil Rights. The actual hiring committees for staff positions were filled with political appointees by John Ashcroft in 2002. The result:

Hires with traditional civil rights backgrounds -- either civil rights litigators or members of civil rights groups -- have plunged. Only 19 of the 45 lawyers hired since 2003 in those three sections were experienced in civil rights law, and of those, nine gained their experience either by defending employers against discrimination lawsuits or by fighting against race-conscious policies.

It was so blatant the former division chief Bradley J. Schlozman openly bragged about it. It was so blatant the administration offered longtime civil rights attorneys a buyout. Department figures show that 63 division attorneys left in 2005 -- nearly twice the average annual number of departures since the late 1990s.Yet I saw no Congressional activity around that. Congress is on it now but only as part of the investigation forced by the electoral scandal exposed by the mass Attorney General firings.

Suppose they were smart enough to "trickle down" the terminations?

So does Monica Goodling represent an "isolated incident"? Not when the Honors Program is shot through with political partisanship, and they're still working on the Civil Rights division investigation. Not when this, obviously part of the effort to create permanent Conservative rule, is run by guys who are justifying torture. Not when a major source of talent (I use the term loosely) was Regent Law School, one of the worst rated law schools in history and the alma mater of Kay Coles James, director of the Office of Personnel Management -- essentially the head of human resources for the executive branch.

We've only stirred the surface.