Sieg W. Heil!

[captainsblog]

There's a local connection to the story breaking over the past few days, about the Justice Department underling who got skewered in an internal DOJ report for making departmental recommendations on purely ideological grounds.

Monica ("not THAT one!") Goodling, all of 31 and fresh out of Messiah College and Pat Robertson's law school, was identified as the Administration's fall gal in the internal report. Somehow she's the one that got put in charge of vetting all kinds of high-level appointees for the Justice Department (probably assisted by Dick Cheney moving her lips while swallowing a glass of water), and she's the one who's now getting the public flogging for what they put her up to.

One of the casualties of her efforts was someone I know. Bill Hochul has been an Assistant US Attorney here under four different Presidents of both political parties. He was in my law school class, and in most of my classes. He's a little full of himself, but Notre Dame will do that to you, and it's the perfect personality for being a prosecutor. In the not-quite-friends context I knew him in law school, and in the occasional appearances I saw him make in Bankruptcy Court over the years, I saw nothing but dedication, honesty and integrity.  He prosecuted, successfully, a local terrorist cell known as the Lackawanna Six (which, much like the Big Ten, has since been identified, partly through Bill's efforts, as going a bit beyond that number of members).

Naturally, Dubya passed him over for a high-level national position in the department's counter-terrorism effort. Monica spat him out because he had never been registered as a Republican (he's an Independent now), but was even more perturbed because he had the nerve to marry a woman who's a fairly prominent Democrat in this county.

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That's the part of the story I know a little about personally, which sucks. These are the parts, from today's story on it, which frankly scare me, because it makes this hack sound like something right out of the Communist Young Pioneers in terms of her indoctrination:

In the course of two years, she:...

• Vetted promotion prospects for nonpolitical positions on the basis of her political views on the key issues she described in notes as “God, guns + gays.”

• Asked would-be Justice Department job applicants: “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?”

...

As deputy director of that office, and later as the attorney general’s White House liaison, Goodling vetted candidates for high-level, presumably nonpartisan jobs at the Justice Department, the report said.

She told a congressional committee last year that she did Internet searches on job applicants, and the report shows that she used a standard search method left over by her predecessor that included terms such as “gay,” “Democrat,” “Florida recount” and “spotted owl” in conjunction with the applicant’s name.

Goodling also had an unconventional interviewing style for candidates for the supposedly nonpolitical jobs. According to the report, she asked them questions such as “Why are you a Republican?” and “Aside from the president, give us an example of someone currently or recently in public service who you admire.”

And when one applicant named Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Goodling frowned and said: “But she’s pro-choice,” the report said.

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But she didn't blow the President, so nobody will remember her name or care. Even though they damn well should.

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*shudders and clutches UK visa*