WASHINGTON (June 24) – Ivy Leaguers and other top law students were rejected for plum Justice Department jobs two years ago because of their liberal leanings or objections to Bush administration politics, a government report concluded Tuesday.
The only thing I find surprising is how unsurprised I am.
PAD
• 
It should be noted that this is not “just politics” but a Federal crime. But like the other laws this administration has broken, there will be little repercussions.
I am still waiting for the first Republican politician to say that if someone breaks the law, they should be prosecuted. You know that whole “no one is above the law” stuff they were shouting at Clinton. (I’m talking to YOU Lindsay Graham.)
I guess it’s really no Democrat is above the law.
I’m not even surprised by the lack of surprise.
This is why I cannot vote Republican. I liked McCain in 2000. (Don’t worry I am voting for Obama,) but I would have considered McCain if not for the fact that the Republican party has just been…(more)evil these past 8 years. As President I think he would be helpless to stop some of the policies that Republicans would try to get through and also I would hate to give Republicans the satisfaction of winning the election. They would say “wow, we stole one election, got us involved in 2 wars, tanked the economy, and were involed in 9238490204 scandals and the American people STILL wanted us back in office, what morons”.
We should take heart in the fact that the dark times are almost over. Even if McCain wins, I can’t believe he’ll put Christian activists in the direction of health programs, like Bush did.
I’m just as angry at the Democrats in office who wont bother to hold the Republicans responsible for the criminal activity. The Democrats keep handing victory after victory to Bush as if they’re too stupid to understand that they now hold a majority in both Houses. I want leaders in office, not these sheep.
“I’m just as angry at the Democrats in office who wont bother to hold the Republicans responsible for the criminal activity. The Democrats keep handing victory after victory to Bush as if they’re too stupid to understand that they now hold a majority in both Houses. I want leaders in office, not these sheep.”
As a good Democrat I’d like to disagree with you. I’d like to, but I can’t.
They deal with Bush as if he’s still polling at 90% and has the people behind him. This is the most unpopular President since polling began. The majority of the people approve of impeachment. And the gutless Dems can’t challenge this criminal on anything. (Here’s your FISA immunity sir, can I have another.)
I said this back when Bush first started amassing power in the White House…I hope the Dems don’t just sit back and let it happen because they’re too tempted to use it when they get a sitting president again. But it sure seems like that could be what’s happening. The Dems find the possibility of being able to use all that power “for good” too tempting to try and stop him now.
I’m just as angry at the Democrats in office who wont bother to hold the Republicans responsible for the criminal activity.
Agreed.
I’m not sure whether the Democrats don’t act against Bush because they want to use the same powers later, or if they’re just afraid that somehow, by appearing aggressive, they’ll manage to lose the coming election.
Apparently it’s okay for a Republican to use every dirty trick in the book and to go for the throat when defending their views, but a Democrat doing the same is seem as a dangerous liberal loony leftie. And no one wants to be seem as a dangerous liberal loony leftie.
The Dems are very lucky to have Obama – a guy who proclaims to be on the side of change, but at the same time appears so completely non-threatening and non-aggressive that he seems immune to being called an angry loony leftie.
If you ask me, it’s another legacy of that brilliant man, Karl Rove. His spin when the Iraq War started was to label anyone against Bush’s policies as an unpatriotic, irresponsible, dangerous element. Bush may be extremely unpopular now, but it seems that enough of Rove’s protective magic continues, and people are still afraid of attacking Bush.
“The Democrats keep handing victory after victory to Bush as if they’re too stupid to understand that they now hold a majority in both Houses.”
I understand the sentiment and agree with much of it, but to nitpick, it’s worth realizing that the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate isn’t a huge one. They only have a majority because 2 independent senators generally caucus with the Democrats, and one of them–Joe Liberman–seems to differ with the general Democratic line on many points.
Over in the House of Representatives, the Democrats have a more notable majority–236 to 199 according to wikipedia.
Precarious majorities in congress aren’t necessarily a situation where you’d expect to see the Democrats acting flush with power. Since Democrats have in neither house the 2/3 majority to override a presidential veto, it’s a little unreasonable for to expect their current majorities to amount to much in practical terms.
But just wait for another election cycle or two…
In 1998 the Senate was 55-R / 45-D and the House was 223-R / 211-D, and yet they still managed to impeach Clinton. The Dems are gutless.
Posted by: edhopper at June 25, 2008 01:11 PM
“I’m just as angry at the Democrats in office who wont bother to hold the Republicans responsible for the criminal activity. The Democrats keep handing victory after victory to Bush as if they’re too stupid to understand that they now hold a majority in both Houses. I want leaders in office, not these sheep.”
As a good Democrat I’d like to disagree with you. I’d like to, but I can’t.
They deal with Bush as if he’s still polling at 90% and has the people behind him. This is the most unpopular President since polling began. The majority of the people approve of impeachment. And the gutless Dems can’t challenge this criminal on anything. (Here’s your FISA immunity sir, can I have another.)
And, speaking of FISA, which presumptive Democratic nominee (whose spokesman, just last year, promised that said person would “support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies”) is now being criticized for his agreeing to a “compromise”? Even MoveOn.org (the group which asked its “3.2 million members” to vote on endorsing a Democratic Presidential candidate, and became the PDN’s biggest cheerleader) had to send an e-mail to its members asking them to contact the PDN to stand by the pledge that had been made last year to stand firm against the telecom immunity issue.
It looks to me like more and more people will come to realize that, rather than rallying behind a candidate for “change”, they’ve been stuck with little more than the same old candidate in bright and shiny new packaging.
For the first time in my entire life voting for a Presidential candidate, I won’t be voting for the Democrat (unless something dramatic happens at the Convention). (I am rather disappointed at the Clintons’ for agreeing to campaign for O. Both were savaged by the O camp as racists, but for some inexplicable reason, the O camp, and St O, now appear to want both of them.)
Keeping it polite, someone considering voting for McCain simply isn’t thinking right.
Why would you vote against your own best interests?
Tommy wrote: “I understand the sentiment and agree with much of it, but to nitpick, it’s worth realizing that the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate isn’t a huge one. They only have a majority because 2 independent senators generally caucus with the Democrats, and one of them–Joe Liberman–seems to differ with the general Democratic line on many points.
Over in the House of Representatives, the Democrats have a more notable majority–236 to 199 according to wikipedia.”
That House majority is *plenty* enough to strike down the Fisa bill. They don’t need a two thirds majority to override a veto, they don’t need both houses, they don’t even need all the Democrats to agree. 218 Representatives voting against the horrendous Fisa bill would do just fine.
It amazes me how much Hate there is here. Do you honestly think Obama will change anything other than how much you pay in taxes? Mark my words as someone who has had Control of both house of Congress and the Presidency. They get a lot less done than you think they will and tend to me a lot more corrupt they you ever want to believe are. That said the Republicans need to get their clock cleaned so we can come back in a few years with better leadership and so flesh faces. By then the country will be ready for change again such is the way of things.
You personally have had control of both houses and the presidency, Matt? Neat — where do I sign up to be next in line?
TWL
“It amazes me how much Hate there is here. Do you honestly think Obama will change anything other than how much you pay in taxes?”
Yes, yes I do. I have my misgivings about Obama and I doubt that he’s going to be that much of a reformer or a new kind of politician since some of his biggest early supporters in the party were members of the old guard. However, I do believe that getting Obama into office would improve situations like this simply due to removing and replacing a number of the Bush Gang worker drones.
Would we get a bright, shiny and pristine clean government system with Obama? No. But I doubt that we’ll get a group of people that are as power hungry, corrupt or contemptible as this lot has been. There’s always a risk of being proven wrong when you make a statement about ‘things not being able to get worse than this’ and such, but I really don’t see Obama or the people he appoints being worse than the Bush Gang or even close to being this bad.
I agree with Jerry. I think even McCain wouldn’t be nearly as bad as Bush’s gang.
It isn’t just the usual corruption and incompetence that we came to expect from most politicians. What is really scary about the Bush administration is the authoritarian bent evidenced by most of their actions, including this one mentioned by PAD.
The crooked politician that lines the pockets of his friends isn’t half as scary as the guy that seems to be on some sort of moral crusade to promote uniformity of thought (and not that Bush didn’t line the pockets of his friends too).
Even incremental improvement would be a godsend (though I’m guessing there will be noticeable, but modest, improvement) (for one thing, they’ll focus on top drawer candidates—even if the selection is somewhat partisan, they’ll get good people in the jobs….)
Jerry, Rene, Roger This is by no means a snarky
(is that the right word?) question but what exactly is it that the Bush administration is doing that is so corrupt and wrong?
Or more to the point, more corrupt and wrong than any other administration?
I know, I know, yes Ive been reading everyones posts but after awhile it all seems to run together with all the different topics all going at once. (Which by the way, is one of the reasons I like coming here)
Im not looking to change minds or anything and Im certainly not going the “stop the hate route”
as others here have stated.
I’ll admit to being a bit naive in my view of the world but not so much that I will not listen to other views.
Pat,
The Bush administration gave the Justice Department new guidelines for hiring lawyers. These guidelines basically made sure that lawyers with liberal views or Democrat affiliations didn’t get the jobs. This is not something that past administrations have done, lawyers from the Justice Department have said that politics is never completely kept out, but for the most part they have been shielded from it. This is not only different from what’s been done in the past, it is actually a Federal Crime to hire lawyers to the Justice Department based on political leanings.
The Bush administration authorized warrantless wire tapping. This is not something that past administrations have done. A lot of us are angry about that and we’re angry that Congress is now passing a “No Harm No Foul” bill excusing everyone involved.
There are tons of other things, but at this point it would be redundant to go over them all. To summarize: Torture, falsifying the case for going to war (he was planning to go to war with Iraq before 9/11), and claiming that God wanted him to be President are all things that US Presidents generally don’t do. “Generally” meaning you’ll have a hard time finding many examples at all of other Presidents doing these things.
Wiretaps, Guantanamo, Iraq, Val Plame, embedded journalists, empowering the radical Religious Right, claiming everyone against their policies is unpatriotic, putting religious activists in charge of health programs, ideological patrolling among government employees, and the list goes on.
Pat, it is not the corruption or the incompetence that we’d come to expect from any politician. I’ve come to accept that politicians are greedy and inept and chummy with all the wrong people. Those are facts of life.
What makes Bush more scary than any other American presidents to my eyes is the authoritarian, “crusading” bent in all of those decisions.
A good, ole corrupt crook is less scary to me than the guy that is so sure of his convictions that he is willing to trample anything in the pursuit of his agenda.
While his being chummy with Halliburton and cutting taxes for the rich don’t endear him to me none, it’s sorta business as usual for politicians. While the I-am-Holy-Emperor-George thingie is what sets Bush apart.
The supreme court went on record qualifying what other president as having committed a war crime according to the Geneva conventions?
In that ruling 2 years ago, they overturned a trial justified to them only by a presidential privilege of the UCMJ, which they rejected and said was a war crime. What other president got a supreme court majority to agree he was a war criminal?
Alan Coil,
“Someone considering voting for McCain simply isn’t thinking right. Why would you vote against your own best interests.”
Because if you would actually use critical thinking skills instead of being arrogant and condescending, you would realize a lot of people feel voting for McCain is in their best interests, whether it’s because they think he’ll lower their taxes, protect the country better or simply is a man of intelligence and honor. You may disagree on these points, but the fact many people feel this way does not make their opinion/belief/decision on voting for McCain any less valid than whatever choice you make. Happy to clarify.
Alan Coil,
“Someone considering voting for McCain simply isn’t thinking right. Why would you vote against your own best interests.”
Because if you would actually use critical thinking skills instead of being arrogant and condescending, you would realize a lot of people feel voting for McCain is in their best interests, whether it’s because they think he’ll lower their taxes, protect the country better or simply is a man of intelligence and honor. You may disagree on these points, but the fact many people feel this way does not make their opinion/belief/decision on voting for McCain any less valid than whatever choice you make. Happy to clarify.
Alan Coil,
“Someone considering voting for McCain simply isn’t thinking right. Why would you vote against your own best interests.”
Because if you would actually use critical thinking skills instead of being arrogant and condescending, you would realize a lot of people feel voting for McCain is in their best interests, whether it’s because they think he’ll lower their taxes, protect the country better or simply is a man of intelligence and honor. You may disagree on these points, but the fact many people feel this way does not make their opinion/belief/decision on voting for McCain any less valid than whatever choice you make. Happy to clarify.
Will voting for McCain stop people from making triple posts? 🙂
(And I love the “is a man of intelligence of honor” example, presented with the implication that Obama is NOT. Subtle there, big guy.)
TWL
Jerome, thanks for calling me “…arrogant and condescending…”. Really appreciate it.
Anybody who knows me knows I am not arrogant. I hate arrogant people. And I’m only condescending when I am being sarcastic. Can you understand that? Or should I explain it to you in simpler terms?
(And I love the “is a man of intelligence of honor” example, presented with the implication that Obama is NOT. Subtle there, big guy.)
That may have been his intention but not necessarily. If someone compliments Obama on one of his many good attributes I won’t automatically assume it’s a dig at McCain.
Honestly, I think we have two good guys running this time. Not flawless, but good. There’s no reason to think poorly of someone just because they support either one. Now, Nader or Barr…
Alan, you’re an arrogant person:
You’re an arrogant person because you literally refuse to waive the privilege to ridicule someone for being right. You can always make it a first and explain why you’re an áššhølë to me when I don’t know you, claim to know you, or even talk to you.
That may have been his intention but not necessarily. If someone compliments Obama on one of his many good attributes I won’t automatically assume it’s a dig at McCain.
Ordinarily, neither would I. When it’s given as a reason to vote for McCain over Obama, however, I think it’s a reasonable read as to implication.
Agreed that we seem to (at long last) have two decent people running, however. I know which one’s getting my vote barring a truly strange turn of events, but it’s not nearly the visceral thing that Bush provokes.
TWL
I think people have gotten so used to what they see as voting for the lesser of two evils that, for some, it’s become automatic to trash the other guy as a justification for their vote (It’s also a way to take a stand without having to risk admitting to making a mistake–you didn’t vote FOR something, you voted AGAINST something worse).
I don’t think that’s what Jerome was doing though. I think it would be hard to argue that either of these guys isn’t at least as intelligent and/or honorable as one can expect from modern politicians. Not that this will stop the hardcore partisans from demonizing the guy of their non-choice.
Tim Lynch,
I meant only what I said. I was using examples why people might feel it IS “in their interest” to vote for McCain. Frankly, I am tired of people saying somone who votes for Republicans is voting “against their interests”. It IS arrogant and condescending. Since, not only could we argue for point-for-point on various issues but people saying that have no idea what “my” interest is or anyone else’s. “Quality of life” can be defined many ways. Here in small town U.S.A. where I live, for example, there is more public housing than ever before. Which doesn’t necessarily make it a bad thing in and of itself, but when you have kids unsupervised and at the very least without discipline, kicking a whole block of people’s garbage cans into the street and then the mother yelling at my uncle when he just said they should have respect – and when you late have her boy friend showing up at his doorstep to threaten a man who is over 60, and when you have one of co-workers denied housing because he and his wife – a teacher – make too much money (why encorage tax payers when you can reserve the space for tax takers!)and thet’re reserving it for public housing AND when I finally get invited to sit on the porch with my new neighbor and take her up on her offer to get to know her and her friends and three times in about an hour her one friend was making fun of people who were leaving early because they had to go to work the next morning because “I don’t have to worry about that, I sell drugs”, well, I have a very legitimate reason to wonder if my quality-of life is improving despite my income increasing recently. That is just one example.
And Tim, I was just using a few examples of why someone might prefer McCain. I was using the “intelligence and honor” thing as a way to emphasize what HE is emphasizing. I am not saying Obama doesn’t have those qualities (although the more I learn about and hear from him are starting to convince me he has less of each than I though) I was simply stating why someone might vote FOR McCain. And as one liberal columnistin the New York Daily News said in the past week, the problem for Obama is when he flip-flops/does something expedient like reverse himself on public funding of campaigns, it really hurts him. Because, he said, we know that McCain – for all his positioning in the election – has shown under some of the harshest circumstances that there are certain lines he won’t cross. We don’t know that as concretely about Obama, because we don’t know as much about him, period.
Obviously I’d vote for Obama if I were American, but McCain is an admirable man in many respects too. For one, he is a true war hero, a far cry from the draft-dodger daddy’s boy that got the US in the Iraq mess.
He is also a rare Republican that tends to be liberal in social matters. I wish guys like him were in charge of the Republican Party. True, he has flip-flopped somewhat to appease the radical conservatives, but that is basic political survival for you, you can’t alienate your base so close to an election.
Maybe I’m being naive, but I think that if McCain is elected, and once he is established, he won’t cater to crazy-eyed Creationists like Bush did. That McCain is uncomfortable with these people and they’re uncomfortable with him, is proof that the man is rational.
And as one liberal columnistin the New York Daily News said in the past week, the problem for Obama is when he flip-flops/does something expedient like reverse himself on public funding of campaigns, it really hurts him.
See, I look at this as one more reason why Obama will win–he is willing to do what it takes to win. In the last few weeks we’ve seen him reverse on public financing (which will net him hundreds of millions of dollars in ads), decline to follow up on his offer to fillibuster the FISA bill (which upset a few liberals like Glenn Greenwald but takes an issue off the table that probably would have helped McCain), rescinded his opinion that the handgun ban was constitutional (which takes the wind out of the NRAs sails) and come out to the right of the Supreme Court on the death penalty for people who rape children (the pro-child rape lobby is not a very powerful one). Each case where he has reversed himself or gone to the right has only made it easier for him to win. Sure, it’ll upset a few die hard true believers–but where are they gonna go? These flip flops, if you want to call them that, aren’t going to hurt him in the least. Quite the opposite.
He’s got a much better political sense than either Clinton ever did and Clinton was the last successful Democratic presidential candidate. Unlike Bill though, I expect he will actually get a majority of the vote.
Only time will tell whether or not his competence in campaigning will transfer to an equal ability in actually leading.
Jerome,
Frankly, I am tired of people saying somone who votes for Republicans is voting “against their interests”.
I understand why you would feel that way, but I suspect Alan was using that as shorthand for “against their ECONOMIC interests,” which has at least some basis in fact given the correlation between GOP administrations and the rise of income inequality.
I can’t put words in Alan’s mouth and don’t plan to, but that’s my sense of it. He’s hardly the only one who uses the term, and I doubt you’d be able to get away with saying that everyone who uses it is just condescending.
And Tim, I was just using a few examples of why someone might prefer McCain. I was using the “intelligence and honor” thing as a way to emphasize what HE is emphasizing.
… and one sentence later:
I was simply stating why someone might vote FOR McCain.
Do you not see that “why someone might vote for McCain” and “why someone might PREFER McCain” are different statements? I have no problem with you citing McCain’s intelligence and honor as positive attributes — but when you cite them as a reason to prefer McCain over Obama, the implication is that McCain has a greater claim to those two qualities.
Unless there are two Jerome Maidas in the Philly area, you’ve been a spokesman for Republican candidates in local elections — as such, you know as well as I do that word choice matters. At a minimum, I’d ask that you at least acknowledge that your statements can be perceived as an anti-Obama implication, even if that wasn’t your intent.
TWL
I think Mike needs remedial Math again.
By the standards of debate as it’s known to western civilization, demonstrating you are incapable of invalidating my observation — by acknowledging it without denying it — validates it. Thank you for confirming you harbor the arrogance you claim to hate, compounding it with hypocrisy.
Did somebody say something? I thought I heard a noise.
Maybe it was a ghost.
If I’m a ghost, I literally can’t be held for being disruptive. If you want to provide an account that I’m not a whiner, well, thank you. Thank you for confirming that it’s a wonder you feel the need to challenge anything I say.
Will somebody do something about those crickets?
Quick, Henry, the Flit!
Craig, thank you for testifying to your indifference to me. Your account, therefore, is that I literally cannot post here too much. Because you can’t have first without the second.
So just from this thread, that’s you, Alan, and Bill. I can only see how it benefits me, but if anyone else wants to waive the privilege of challenging anything I say, please feel free to indulge as your friends seem to have done. I can only imagine the absolution of any selfishness on my part by people who’ve tried to bully me will only improve my evaluation by whatever guardian angel the universe may provide me.
Tim,
I acknowledge my statements could have an anti-Obama implication, even though that was not my intent and even though I am working against Obama becoming President. The qualities I atributed to McCain are qualities I feel he has in great measure, although I have made it clear he was not MY first choice.
For example, I feel McCain pushing campaign-finance reform was self-righteous, uncontitutional bûllšhìŧ. So it doesn’t bother me that Obama is opting out of “public financing” with bûllšhìŧ that the “system is broken” as much as it bothers me that it is transparent and obvious that if McCain had been in a similar position due to whatever factors, Obama would have decried it as politics as usual. Obama has raised a ton of money because he has wexcited a lot of people. Congratulations. That is the way DEMOCRACY is supposed to work. Yet he still seems to get a free pass.
My point was that as much as McCain infuriates me, I pretty much know what his limits/parameters/things he is willing to fight for are. I don’t know that about Obama yet. Is that not a reasonable concern in weighing two candidayes vying for the highest office in the lans?
Jerome
That last word should read “land”.
Jerome,
In a sense though, Obama’s lack of overall guiding principles makes me more comfortable with him as President. I disagree with a lot of his core positions, such as I understand them to be, but if he isn’t willing to take the hard hits required to make them the law of the land, so what?
With McCaine, you have the problem of a guy who not only takes the opposite position but is actually willing to fight for it. I give him credit for that as a man but from a purely selfish standpoint it makes him risky. Now obviously, if there are positions that are very important to you and they coincide with McCain’s, well, he’s your man.
Obama has shown a willingness to bow to public pressure, even after saying he won’t. That’s not an altogether bad thing. I know this sounds like dámņìņg with faint praise but it’s not. I think I have a pretty good idea of how an Obama presidency will work. Not so much with McCain.
At least Obama never signed an agreement opting out of public financing as McCain has done.
McCain borrowed money with the promise of public financing as his collateral. The federal elections commission chair said by their rules, McCain is now obliged to participate in public financing. But because they won’t be convening before the election, McCain is taking advantage of their inability to enforce their rules and defying them. That is dishonorable. Where’s McCain’s public explanation why he isn’t keeping his word?
Thank you, Jerome. That acknowledgment is all I was really after, and I will accept that it wasn’t your intent to slam Obama in the process.
In comics-related news, meanwhile … Newsarama is reporting that Michael Turner has passed away.
http://www.newsarama.com/comics/080628-Turner.html
TWL
Tim,
Re: Michael Turner.
Yes. I am at Wizard Chicago and heard at the hotel bar. It obviously cast a pall on the rest of the night, but the funny thing is a lot of people who were really close to him said they did not feel Michael would want them to be sad and instead not only relived his memories but celebrated his life and getting to know him. I never really did, but the couple times I saw him he always had a smile on his face. Heis one of the very few people in comics everyone seemed to like personally and I never heard a bad word uttered about him.