Seems that the prosecutor that Monica Goodling refused to hire because the candidate's wife was a Democrat--yeah, he was one of the most qualified counter-terrorism prosecutors around. But Monica refused to consider him (pages 53 and 54). But surely they hired someone just as good who happened to complete her little Bush-love test, right?
Similarly, Kelly told us that Goodling refused to allow EOUSA to hire the candidate because his wife was active in Democratic politics.May this be attached to every discussion about the Bush Justice department from now on.
--snip--
Because EOUSA had been unable to fill the counterterrorism detail after Goodling vetoed this candidate, a current EOUSA detailee was asked to assume EOUSA’s counterterrorism portfolio. This replacement detailee had been an AUSA since September 2004, after having served as an assistant district attorney for 3 years. He had been detailed to EOUSA in 2006. He had no counterterrorism experience and had less than the minimum of 5 years of federal criminal prosecution experience required by the EOUSA job announcement. Battle, Nowacki, Kelly, and Voris all said they thought that he was not qualified for the position, since he had no counterterrorism experience. The replacement candidate was a registered Republican who Goodling had interviewed and approved before he was selected for his EOUSA detail.
In sum, we concluded that Goodling prevented EOUSA from selecting an experienced career AUSA 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. (emphasis mine)
Sigh.
11 comments:
I am hoping that this type of behavior will receive closer scrutiny in the future and the DOJ will be filled with the best candidates, not the most politically connected. I am not holding my breath, though.
The previous AG in my state had a reputation of only hiring grads from Ivy League schools. The current one seems to spread it around more.
I agree that hiring only Ivy Leaguers seems to be an unnecessary narrowing of the candidate pool, and that it is likely to overlook other outstanding candidates. Yet, it's a very different thing. The AG was overgeneralizing about qualifications based on academic background. That is not the same as excluding someone based on unrelated personal characteristics (or reputed personal characteristics, ie "I heard she's a lesbian"), the political views of a candidates spouse, or personal admiration for a member of the president's cabinet with whom the official disagrees on abortion. There is a deep irony in invoking the Ivy League in a thread about the hiring decisions made my those from Liberty U. Law School.
I agree that it isn't quite as bad, though it had been personally frustrating, as I had not gone to an Ivy League school.
Was it Liberty U or Regent U? I'm probably getting them confused.
I've heard enough horror stories about DOJ at work that I'm not sure this category of thing is necessarily unprecedented, but it is certainly new to be so openly lawless and casually discriminatory. Apparently it's more common to discriminate on the basis of political connections, not in the party sense, but in the sense of being no more than two or three degrees removed in social circles from the hiring personnel. If you're smart, hardworking, well educated but come from a poor family, your kids might have a shot, but you're screwed.
Goodling was a product of Robertson's Regent University. I don't know if Liberty has a law school.
I agree that there has always been a battle between the Ivys and the rest of us--those who might have actually gone to a public University. Trading that bias for one that preferred hiring based on merit would be welcome change. The Bushies chose to trade it for pure political loyalty. Reading some of Goodlings questions for applicants reminded me of a Soviet style cult of the personality where loyalty and admiration for the leader was expected and required.
I don't know if Liberty has a law school.
Oh yes. They have a law school. In its infancy but along the same level as regent. IIRC, Regent was a "prototype" of sorts for LU's.
Sorry--last post was from me. Can't get used to the new commenting window. :)
OK, yes, Regent, not Liberty on this one. I still see "what about George Bush makes you want to serve Him?" (what a creepy quasi-theological formulation of the question anyway) as more than a little different from passing me over because I went to OU instead of Yale.
But anyway, Liberty, Regent, diploma mill, box tops, what's the difference? Anyone see Olbermann last night on Goodlings Lexis Nexis searches? Great stuff.
I agree, UBUB. This is not just an institutional bias. And I did see Olbermann's take on her Lexis search string. It was amazing.
Let's face it. If Monica Goodling were the only example of this kind of stupidity from this administration, we would just shake our heads and move on. But she isn't.
What kind of reputation does Liberty have? They are too new to appear in any of the rankings, though I don't place too much emphasis on those. Part of it is from going to a mid-tier school and the fact that I have met some really great lawyers that went to crappy schools.
I have no doubt that some good lawyers come out of crappy schools, but if you are going to have a bias towards an institution, that is not the way to do it. Say what we will about Ivy league bias, those schools are not known for producing crappy lawyers. They may be crappy people, but the schools have a reputation.
Liberty and Regent have a reputation too--it is called brainwashed fundamentalism. Hell, it is practically in their mission statement.
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