Justice is Blind

Yesterday the Inspector General, in a scathing report, concluded that the Justice Department broke the law by using politics to guide their hiring decisions. The IG office is expected to release a report on the firing of U.S. Attorneys in the upcoming weeks. It has been clear for some time that this administration has no shame when it comes to actually adhering to the laws of the land, but their practice of filling high profile slots with unqualified and incompetent people has caused irreparable harm to the American people.

By allowing the Justice Department to hire people based on questions such as, "Why do you want to serve George Bush" and "Why are you a Republican", they lowed the level of competency and impartiality in the arm of government that is supposed to ensure that the law of the land is followed. The person who was in charge of these practices was Monica Goodling, who graduated from Pat Robertson's law school (that's right, Pat Robertson of the 700 Club has his own Law School. The man who believes that there is a worldwide Jewish conspiracy, the man who said that the world would end in 1982, the man who called for the assassination of the leader of another country, the man who blamed the 9/11 attacks on abortionists, feminists, gays, lesbians and the ACLU among others, has his own Law School!). Apparently her greatest strengths were that she was a conservative and that she believed strongly in the President and his mission. Oh, and she went to Pat Robertson's Law School (Surprisingly she beat out all the Ivy League graduates that year. Go figure)

She was obviously not the architect of this plan, but like Scooter Libby before her, there has to be a fall guy or girl for the administration. Alberto Gonazalez, who resigned under massive criticism from members of Congress and the threat of impeachment hearings, was clearly the one who gave the go ahead to implement this plan, but it is also clear that this was just business as usual for the Bush administration. The FEMA mess surrounding Hurricane Katrina is the most famous example of the Bush administration practices when it came to filling positions. The head of that department, had no emergency management experience before being named deputy director of that federal agency, which occurred just one year before he was named Director.

The U.S. Department of Justice is supposed to objective and independent, but under this administration, it just turned into another tool for the White House to carry out their plans without any possible oversight. Filling senior positions with sycophants from Pat Robertson's Law School is probably not going to lead to providing the American people with the best protection of their rights. The Justice Department is supposed to serve the American people and the Office of the Presidency, not serve the individual to the detriment of the American people. I know I sleep so much better at night knowing that the people who are entrusted with ensuring that the laws of this country are followed were hired because they came up with a good answer to the question, "Why do you want to serve George Bush". It comforts me to know that when I want to find the best and brightest in America, I only need to turn to one source, Pat Robertson. I think I'll go make a donation to the 700 Club right now.