by Damozel | Yesterday, I posted in some depth about Goodling's work at what legal scholar Jonathan Turley has called 'The Voldemort Department of Human Resources.' (Countdown, embedded below) Via The Raw Story:
The White House's silence on the Justice Department report should indicate, perhaps, at least a tacit endorsement of Goodling's tactics, Turley says.
"The question really is why isn't the president coming forward and saying there's a shame factor here at what occurred at the Justice Department," he said. "Alberto Gonzales picked this person, not because of the merits -- she lacked anything on the merits. She was picked because she was an extremist, and this is the result." ( The Raw Story discusses the segment in depth.)
Is there any hope, Olbermann asks, that the Bush Administration will be held accountable? Will Monica be the only offiicial who pays the price for enabling them (under Gonzalez) to achieve unchecked power.
Turley also addressed the possibility that Monica Goodling (from Regent University law school) would end up being the Administration's scapegoat. She may lose her law license--and most certainly should. But she's the symptom, not the cause, a point which Turley makes.
"That would be rather pathetic, wouldn't it, if Monica Goodling was the only one who went off to club fed," Turley said, speculating about the possibility of Goodling being convicted of a federal crime. (The Raw Story)
Yes, it would. Goodling was simply the hand attached to the Bush Administration's remote-controlled arm. She deserves public humiliation (for the deterrent value to others) and a time out..
Surely the people she was fronting for most certainly also deserve condign punishment (in proportion to the extent of their disregard for the law, the constitution, public policy, fairness and common decency.)
See Dan Froomkin at WaPo on 'A Culture of Corruption.' Among much else, he writes:
The big fish keep swimming away.
The latest investigation into the overt politicization of the Department of Justice has meticulously documented how a handful of young political appointees blatantly violated federal laws and Justice Department policies by hiring career employees based on the extent of their devotion to Republican dogma.
But the report doesn't address who is responsible for creating the culture of corruption in which these aides thrived.
Who asked them to behave this way? Or, barring an explicit request, how did they come to conclude that this was what their superiors expected of them? Who twisted the Justice Department, designed to operate with a large degree of independence, into a political adjunct of the White House?
And is it really just a coincidence that Monica Goodling, the central culprit of this latest report, held the title of White House liaison? (More)
I'm sure that as a law-and-order lovin' social conservative Goodling is prepared to take the consequences of her actions---and to see her overseers and enablers do the same. She wouldn't want to add hypocrisy to the other charges against her, would she?
On that score---and speaking as a Quaker-based God-botherer---I'd just like to add a word about these far right Christian conservative lawyers that Gonzalez or Ashcroft recruited from 'America's Preeminent Christian University' and other institutions of that ilk. I don't necessarily think, as some do, that these people are lacking in innate ability or are less intelligent than graduates of many more highly ranked institutions. It's not a question of intelligence (as Olbermann implies), but of the process by which they make their judgments.
It seems quite evident that Goodling and certain of her conservative Christian colleagues brought to her performance of her duties on behalf of the Republican party the same propensity for received 'wisdom,' faith in her beliefs, judgment and exclusion of others, and zealousness that are characteristic of True Believers. It seems not to have occurred to Goodling ---who certainly struck me as intelligent---that there is even any value in judgment detached from Belief. And it's precisely this blind spot that has enabled so many of the excesses of the administration's officials and enablers.
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I can't think of anyone who is more deserving of being made a scapegoat. While it's always satisfying to get the big fish, there are certain little fish who have all the culpability and hardened spirit of the men (or, theoretically, women) at the top, and simply haven't advanced as far in the criminal ranks. Monica Goodling is such a person.
Posted by: Charles | July 30, 2008 at 12:49 AM