Regarding the righty-right right defense, I don't think Ashcroft or Abu Gonzalez has been quizzed on the topic yet.

It's not a story for them because they don't see anything wrong with it. All part of the Nixonization of the (in)Justice Dep't.

Maybe they're aware that it's not that many steps from this way of using the government you're in charge of to intimidate the opposition to Mugabe's way of doing the same thing.

Check again, Ms. Lopez has a comment.

Apparently, the party line is that the career guys were liberal. Sort of a "you did it, too" argument.

I'm not sure to what you are referring to.

Look, a terrorist!

Yeah, the "Clinton started it!" meme seems to be starting out of the garage at last.

My country.

How can I believe in Justice when such a blatant attempt to violate federal law is carried out with such a cavalier attitude?

It's as if a bunch of folks decided that they KNEW what was good for the country and F===K the rest of us.

Time for a major change folks.

I'm pissed.

I'm glad to see that they approve of affirmative action (hiring grossly less qualified people for the job) if it's affirmative action for conservatives. Hypocrites once again.

Here you go...

Department of Injustice [Kathryn Jean Lopez]

The DOJ Office of Inspector General has produced a report exposing the Bush Justice Department for demonstrating a bias towards hiring conservatives, in two out of seven years, for career positions there instead of liberals. I've not read the 110 pages but a Beltwayer who has points out:

The report does not establish that either John Ashcroft or the much maligned Alberto Gonzales were involved in any of the hiring decisions. The report does show, however, that former Assistant Attorney General Peter Keisler (the guy the Democrats won't allow the President to appoint to the federal bench) actively stood up for liberal job applicants who may have been passed over for some of the available openings. The report also shows that the "non-partisan" career DOJ staff consistently recommended self-described liberals instead of conservatives for openings by a more than 2-1 margin. Can't wait for the next installment of "News You Can't Use" from these folks.

The outrage, of course, is it was only two years

This is only partially related, but it seems like a good place to ask. We know that the Justice Department has been stacked with less-than-stellar individuals. But is it ethical, or even legal, to simply clean house once Obama is elected? I know that U.S. Attorneys are replaced once a new administration is installed, but if the same doesn't happen with the Justice Department (and so far I have indications it doesn't), wouldn't we have a bunch of unqualified hacks nipping at our heals? If that's the case, why doesn't Obama just poach a roughly equal number of conservative and liberal (with more emphasis being on the liberals, as in a 60/40 or 55/45 split) individuals, all of whom have respectable backgrounds?

I think gab got it. They don't consider it a scandal because they think that's the way it oughta be. Fair and balanced, don't ya know. We've had enough government lawyers from all those high-toned "good schools."
As Senator Roman Hrska (I think) said about Supreme Court nominations: mediocre people need representation, too.

Seriously, who watches fox news?

I was at least hoping to find something humorous enough to get a mocking blog post out of.

Well Kevin, President Bush provided plenty of material in his "speech" welcoming the President of the Phillipines today.

PRESIDENT BUSH: Madam President, it is a pleasure to welcome you back to the Oval Office. We have just had a very constructive dialogue. First, I want to tell you how proud I am to be the President of a nation that -- in which there's a lot of Philippine-Americans. They love America and they love their heritage. And I reminded the President that I am reminded of the great talent of the -- of our Philippine-Americans when I eat dinner at the White House. (Laughter.)

What an embarrassment.

Adding, we're led to believe the Bush DOJ was "demonstrating bias," no mention whatsoever of destroyed evidence, or law breaking:

[W]e concluded that Elston violated federal law and Department policy by deselecting candidates based on their liberal affiliations. (94)

We also concluded that Elston committed misconduct, and violated federal law and Department policy, when he deselected candidates and denied appeals based on his perception of the political or ideological affiliations of the candidates. (96)

For someone who's always quick to invoke her strict Catholic beliefs to paint liberals as loathsome lawbreakers, K-Lo sure has a hard time admitting wrongdoing from her own team. Sanctimonious hypocrite.

"It's not a story for them because they don't see anything wrong with it."
_______________________

Likewise, it isn't a story when liberals do it. It's called the spoils system, as in "to the victor, goes the spoils." If we like, we can make all such jobs civil service positions. It would provide less incentive for would-be office holders on both sides to dabble in partisan politics.

K Drum: As near as I can tell, the story has been officially blacked out in the right-wing blogosphere.

Well, I mean come on, Kev. How much did you, or the other lefties, blog about all those people Clinton killed? Huh?

"Still, this appears to be one scandal that no one on the right is even making an effort to defend."

What scandal? There is no scandal. Repeat after me: conservatives are morally obliged to pack the bench and make prosecutions absolutely political.

It's only a scandal when liberals do it.

I hate to hear about wrongdoing by Democrats, but I at least want to be informed about it. Most Republicans are happy to live in ignorance. How else can they keep supporting a sack of shit lawbreaker like George W. Bush?

These Web sites aren't treating the wrongdoing as something they "can't defend." They just don't care. They don't exist to report or discuss the issues of the day. They only exist to give readers slanted propaganda.

Since FoxNews, also, exists to disseminate cheap propaganda read by the whores who work there, let's see what that slimy propaganda-outlet has to say. They'll maybe report it a little, but so little that most of their viewers will miss it, or will think it's just some silliness that libruls are all het up over.

Well, the affirmative action for conservatives kids are easily identified and their performance is easily monitored. Civil Service protections do not extend to performance, and they will be weeded. The bigger problem is punishment for those who deliberately politicized the civil service. That is a crime against posterity and good governance, and must be punished severely. Will an Obama Administration establish a special prosecutor?

Hey, was that the real Al? 'Cause if it was, he made a funny...

What I love about the promotion of affirmative action for conservatives in intellectually challenging areas like academics and DOJ law is one gets to listen to the right sputter out all sorts of entertaining rationales for why these particular areas have so few conservatives.

Their conspiracy theories aside, their under-representation really has to do with core tenets of their own worldview, which has contempt for things like Rural Sociology or Civil Rights Enforcement.

If they really care about being represented in these areas, they only need change their ideology to include valuing the pursuit of knowledge and the enforcement of equal opportunity. Seems a lot easier than their current whining and illegal machinations.

How about TV? Anybody watching Fox today? Have their talking heads weighed in on this?

Wait like that lawyers thing? What did the lawyers do, did they charge any blonde female teachers for dating their students? Oh they were fired... well sucks to be them. They were fired because they told some guy named Karl they wouldn`t put someone in jail (dont you think Karl sounds gay...? I think he is gay) Oh so they weren't tough on crime...? Well than its good they were fired right? look one smiling guy in a suit is convinced it the end of the world and the other guy in the suit says everything is fine, so it cant be that bad right?

Face it, a politician getting a blowjob the FOX audience gets, US attorneys getting fired because they would rather try and lock up murderers and rapist than going after tens of "politician getting blowjob" crimes is way to complicated and... oh wait this Washington source with amazing stories just send in this great "politician getting a blowjob story", lets run it now, if a DOJ official says its all true thats like all you need right?

It's called the spoils system, as in "to the victor, goes the spoils."

No, it's not, you drooling idiot. It's a violation of federal law. What they were doing was flagrantly illegal (which is why they tried to cover it up by destroying employment files, which is itself even more illegal because it's evidence tampering and a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice).

If we like, we can make all such jobs civil service positions.

It was a civil service program.

Likewise, it isn't a story when liberals do it. It's called the spoils system.

ahh, the everybody does it defense. That's what your kind said about the US attorney firings too and we know that was a lie. Got any evidence that the liberals do it? Of course not. Got any other meme cause this one is having trouble gaining traction since they broke federal law - but we know your stance on the rule of law, right trashy?

It's called the spoils system

The evangelizing of the Air Force was rationalized as a spoils system, too, but there are enough political appointments to satisfy most party apparatchiks in the government. What has happened to the DOJ and the Air Force are better understood as purges.

There's nothing all that surprising about this. Liberals prefer to spend their time documenting conservative embarrassments and conservatives prefer to spend their time documenting liberal embarrassments.

Um, plenty of liberal blogs are documenting the liberal embarrassment of the Democratic capitulation on FISA. Less facile false equivalences, please.

Speaking of false equivalences, Stefan said what needed to be said about Trashy's dishonest excusing of criminal Republican behavior. Shame on you, Trashy.

If we like, we can make all such jobs civil service positions. It would provide less incentive for would-be office holders on both sides to dabble in partisan politics.

Moron. Fucking moron. Jobs at DOJ are divided into political (which these were not) and career (which these were), and since they're not political appointments, they're governed by applicable federal law prohibiting exactly the sort of discrimination that took place. The DOJ's report itself concludes that the jobs at issue "were career positions."

For example, Section 42.1(a) of 28 C.F.R. Part 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations provides that "It is the policy of the Department of Justice to seek to eliminate discrimination on the basis of...political affiliation...." Moreover, the Civil Service Reform Act also provides that any federal agency is prohibited from engagin in employment discrimination on the basis of political affiliation, and that "selection and advancement should be determined solely on the basis of relative ability, knowledge, and skills...." (5 U.S.C. Section 2301(b)) and further provides that "All employees and applicants for employment should receive fair and equitable treatment in all aspects of personnel management without regard to political affiliation...." (5 U.S.C. Section 2301((b)(2)).

Oh, look, your pants are around your ankles. Need any help picking them up?

Did I miss the section of the report on Clinton DOJ hirings ? Just curious.

? Did I miss the section of the report on Clinton DOJ hirings ? Just curious.

If you go to pg. 4 of the Report, you'll see a big section heading called "Changes to the Hiring Process Made in 2002." To the more discerning reader, this section would be a clue that the process at issue began under the Bush regime, and that the Clinton DOJ hiring process for career employees had continued under the same neutral and non-political guidelines as in previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican.

If you go to pg. 4 of the Report, you'll see a big section heading called "Changes to the Hiring Process Made in 2002."

I'd see that, and you'd see that, but then our respective Weltanschauungen probably don't depend on not seeing that..

Orwell, the prosecutors you refer to were, and are, filling political positions, and the attorneys we're referring to are career civil service positions.

You can read, right? It's just that big foam 'We're #1!' finger getting in the way....

*

Yeah, that's why the Clinton Administration fired all those prosecutors - because they wanted a non-political group of balanced political opinions.

US Attorneys are political positions, not career positions, and hence political affiliation can properly be taken into account when appointing people to such positions. Normally I'd conclude here by saying "but then you knew, that, didn't you, and chose to lie about it instead" but in this case I think you honestly may be too dumb to have known it.

When Clinton's appointments to the cabinet or the courts were deemed too liberal by the Republican Congress, they were withdrawn and replaced with moderates. W. Bush never did that. Clinton did not make recess appointments like W. Bush either. The purging of candidates who did not meet a political litmus test is ideological Republicanism at work, which they then try to claim was practiced by the Clenis.

2008 STATE(TX) REPUBLICAN PLATFORM

page 10...

Remedies to Activist Judiciary – We call Congress and the President to use their constitutional powers to restrain activist judges. We urge
Congress to adopt the Judicial Conduct Act of 2005 and remove judges who abuse their authority. Further, we urge Congress to withhold Supreme
Court jurisdiction in cases involving abortion, religious freedom, and the Bill of Rights.

Oh Lord, page 12...

Marriage Licenses - We support legislation that would make it a felony to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple and for any civil official to
perform a marriage ceremony for such.

If any of the people hired under the program were true conservatives, they would resign at once rather than face the ridicule of their colleagues for being unqualified affirmative-action hires.

Oh, wait.

I see sh*tbag mhr has made it under the editorial radar so far & is as stupid as ever.

"...Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid...." - Voltaire

...demonstrating a bias towards hiring conservatives, in two out of seven years, for career positions there instead of liberals. I've not read the 110 pages...

JLo should read it. It's not "two out of seven years". It's two out of five years 2002-2006. During that period, 2002 and 2006 were the only years in which a large percentage of candidates were deselected. 2002 and 2006 are also the years the report identifies politics playing a significant role. Number deselected/total for Honors & SLIP programs that made it to the screening committee:

2002: 307/911 & 185/398
2003: 6/635 & 10/553
2004: 13/572 & 17/unknown (median 493 other years)
2005: 46/624 & 23/433
2006: 186/602 & 202/451

Umm, Kevin, it isn't just the "conservative" mediasphere that isn't saying much about this DOJ scandal, such as it is. The MSM aren't saying much either unless I wasn't looking very hard. What does that tell you?

I believe that of all the slimy things done by the Bush administration the perversion of the DOJ is the worst. The DOJ is part of the glue that holds America together. If it is viewed as partisan we are only as short step away from civil war. Moreover, when you replace merit with social promotion as the main criteria used in hiring a prosecutor the quality of work goes down dramatically. The people passed over because they were affiliated with "liberal" groups or had Democratic tendencies might have been the very prosecutors who could have won some important convictions. It might take decades to restore confidence in American justice.

Umm, Kevin, it isn't just the "conservative" mediasphere that isn't saying much about this DOJ scandal, such as it is. The MSM aren't saying much either unless I wasn't looking very hard. What does that tell you?

That MSM is a synonym for "conservative" mediasphere.

I feel really sorry for these conservatives who were hired for their ideology rather than their qualifications. Now their self-esteem will be so low for the rest of their lives and they will suffer from immense psychological trauma for ever, just like the African American victims of affirmative action like Barack and Michelle.

Check again, Ms. Lopez has a comment.

I saw that. She would have been much off not saying anything than being pissy, snarky and glib, all at once.

And after all, Bush's own Attorney General weighed in and it wasn't complimentary.

One guess - they're not surprised and they're not upset, either. JMO but I think Drum is bending over backwards to be even-handed about this but he may not being liberal bloggers quite enough credit. This blog and a few others (TPM, comes to mind) tackle the negative news items for Democrats. They excitement may not be there but they don't ignore it.

Has anyone at National Review ever said "Oops. We were wrong."?

Just asking.

She would have been much off not saying anything than being pissy, snarky and glib, all at once.

By an odd coincidence, this comment applies equally to most of Lopez' writings.

As for Mike K, if you have any evidence the Clinton Administration engaged in the same practice, bring it on (and please don't be dumb enough to mention US attorneys, who are indeed political appointees). Until then, your suggestion that this illegal corruption was common to both Administrations is rightly regarded as a feeble but no less dishonest attempt at distracting from the categorically criminal actions of the Administration you carry water for. Shame on you.

Morning Joe talked about it briefly. Mika mischaracterized the issue as ~"the DOJ didn't hire people who disliked Bush's policies." Scarborough took that ball and ran with it. So, when do the prosecutions begins?

-TTm

Free Republic posted a thread, had it pulled within a few minutes, and had another. The commenters on the surviving thread went with the standard memes:
- "Clinton fired all the US attorneys which is worse"
- "It's normal for the party in power to want those who agree with it"
- "They were just trying to balance out all the liberals"
- "conservatives work harder and they just picked the hardworking ones"
- "They're whining"

Not one comment on the actual substance, abuse of power.

Its a simple fact of life that liberals are more likely to take lower paying government jobs in greater numbers than conservatives are, so there are going to be many more liberals staffing these positions than conservatives if politics is not taken into account. So they had to take politics into account to get their people in. So yes, it was affirmative action for conservatives.

It's just that big foam 'We're #1!' finger getting in the way

Bush has been giving Orwell (and the rest of us) the finger for 7 years. But only Orwell thinks it means "We're #1".

> Nothing again from conservative sites.
> As near as I can tell, the story has been
> officially blacked out in the right-wing
> blogosphere.

Well, David Frum had a short and fairly defensive sounding post about it this morning, essentially saying the Bushies were merely doing a bit of "affirmative action" on behalf of conservatives (=the predominantly liberal DOJ bureaucrats used to give preferential treatment to liberal applicants).

http://frum.nationalreview.com/

By the same logic, I guess the armed forces should discriminate against Republicans too...

MARCU$

David Frum had a short and fairly defensive sounding post about it this morning, essentially saying the Bushies were merely doing a bit of "affirmative action" on behalf of conservatives

Since Frum's defense, however feeble, of the Bush Administration's actions amounts to a tacit admission of their illegal acts, that's fine with me.

"Liberals prefer to spend their time documenting conservative embarrassments and conservatives prefer to spend their time documenting liberal embarrassments." Um, Kevin, this is why I've given up on you. In case you haven't noticed, the other side are the extremists.

False equivalence big time.

Volokh Conspiracy wrote about it:

http://www.volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_06_22-2008_06_28.shtml#1214365930