White_Male_Canada
05-31-2007, 01:37 AM
Reports that the next scandal at the Department of Justice may reflect very poorly on the White House -- the Clinton White House. While the Democrats rant over Monica Goodling's unsurprising revelation that the DoJ considered political connections for political appointments, the Prowler reports that the Janet Reno-led DoJ did the exact same thing:
"We knew the political affiliation of every lawyer and political appointee we hired at the Department of Justice from January 1993 to the end of the Administration," says a former Clinton Department of Justice political appointee. "We kept charts and used them when it came time for new U.S. Attorney nominations, detailee assignments, and other hiring decisions. If you didn't vote Democrat, you weren't going anywhere with us. It was that simple."
In fact, according to this source, at least 25 career DOJ lawyers who were identified as Republicans were shifted away from jobs in offices they held prior to January 1993 and were given new "assignments" which were deemed "noncritical" or "nonpolitically influential." When these jobs shifts came to light in 1993, neither the House nor Senate Judiciary committees chose to pursue an investigation.
This is the same issue that has caused a wave of criticism from the Democrats in Congress during this session. It's what makes this part of the so-called "scandal" so laughable. Of course political appointments get political vetting. Of course affiliations matter in these positions. While I don't think making lower-level assignments dependent on those affiliations is a good practice, it was naive to think that this administration differed from the last in that aspect.
This reminds us that the real scandal at Justice isn't that anyone broke the law in firing the prosecutors, although Goodling thinks she broke the law in her personnel practices. The scandal is the incompetent manner in which all of this was handled, and the absentee-manager performance of Alberto Gonzales. By pushing a non-existent legal case against the Bush White House, the Democrats overplayed their hand and made themselves look foolish by raising expectations of a Monichristmas for the netroots.
source:amspec/prowler/fpm
"We knew the political affiliation of every lawyer and political appointee we hired at the Department of Justice from January 1993 to the end of the Administration," says a former Clinton Department of Justice political appointee. "We kept charts and used them when it came time for new U.S. Attorney nominations, detailee assignments, and other hiring decisions. If you didn't vote Democrat, you weren't going anywhere with us. It was that simple."
In fact, according to this source, at least 25 career DOJ lawyers who were identified as Republicans were shifted away from jobs in offices they held prior to January 1993 and were given new "assignments" which were deemed "noncritical" or "nonpolitically influential." When these jobs shifts came to light in 1993, neither the House nor Senate Judiciary committees chose to pursue an investigation.
This is the same issue that has caused a wave of criticism from the Democrats in Congress during this session. It's what makes this part of the so-called "scandal" so laughable. Of course political appointments get political vetting. Of course affiliations matter in these positions. While I don't think making lower-level assignments dependent on those affiliations is a good practice, it was naive to think that this administration differed from the last in that aspect.
This reminds us that the real scandal at Justice isn't that anyone broke the law in firing the prosecutors, although Goodling thinks she broke the law in her personnel practices. The scandal is the incompetent manner in which all of this was handled, and the absentee-manager performance of Alberto Gonzales. By pushing a non-existent legal case against the Bush White House, the Democrats overplayed their hand and made themselves look foolish by raising expectations of a Monichristmas for the netroots.
source:amspec/prowler/fpm