And why should we care?
From the evidence being presented to the congressional enquiry it’s becoming clear that Bushco’s plan from the outset has been to politicise the US civil service, paying particular attention to the Justice department and the Civil Rights division, which is, or rather was,the section which oversees and prosecutes irregularities in voting and enforces minority voting rights.
How very handy to have one of those stacked in your favour, given the Republicans’ history of doubtful election results and voter fraud- and handier still that many of the partisan lawyers appointed after the purge of Democrats and insufficiently loyal Bushies are mostly al members of the Republican Lawyers association who’d been actively involved in engineering those very same doubtful election results.
The Justice department has been turned into a White House political hit squad of underqualified, undereducated, callow, anti-democratic zealots appointed from an barely-known fundie law school, Regent University. Regent University is ranked a “tier four” school by US News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place. It was started to make creationist, dominionist lawyers out of fundy homeschoolers by fundamentalist Christian pundit Pat Robertson:
One of those graduates is Monica Goodling , the former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who is at the center of the storm over the firing of US attorneys. Goodling, who resigned on Friday, has become the face of Regent overnight — and drawn a harsh spotlight to the administration’s hiring of officials educated at smaller, conservative schools with sometimes marginal academic reputations.
Documents show that Goodling, who has asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before Congress, was one of a handful of officials overseeing the firings. She helped install Timothy Griffin , the Karl Rove aide and her former boss at the Republican National Committee, as a replacement US attorney in Arkansas.
Because Goodling graduated from Regent in 1999 and has scant prosecutorial experience, her qualifications to evaluate the performance of US attorneys have come under fire. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, asked at a hearing: “Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?”
And across the political blogosphere, critics have held up Goodling, who declined to be interviewed, as a prime example of the Bush administration subordinating ability to politics in hiring decisions.
“It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally reserved for the best of the legal profession,” wrote a contributor to The New Republic website . “. . . That a recent graduate of one of the very worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the DOJ.”
The Regent law school was founded in 1986, when Oral Roberts University shut down its ailing law school and sent its library to Robertson’s Bible-based college in Virginia. It was initially called “CBN University School of Law” after the televangelist’s Christian Broadcasting Network, whose studios share the campus and which provided much of the funding for the law school. (The Coors Foundation is also a donor to the university.)
Pat Robertson is very clear about why he wants to train fundy lawyers:
We at the Christian Coalition are raising an army who cares. We are training people to be effective — to be elected to school boards, to city councils, to state legislatures, and to key positions in political parties…. By the end of this decade, if we work and give and organize and train, THE CHRISTIAN COALITION WILL BE THE MOST POWERFUL POLITICAL ORGANIZATION IN AMERICA
— Pat Robertson, in a fundraising letter, July 4, 1991There is no such thing as separation of church and state in the Constitution. It is a lie of the Left and we are not going to take it anymore.
Pat Robertson, address to his American Center for Law and Justice, November, 1993.
This in preference to top graduates from A-rated nationwide law schools like Harvard or Yale (though having been to Yale is hardly a reccommendation, given as it’s Bush Sr and Jr’s alma mater). Appointments to the most important job in US government, the impartial administration of justice, are being made purely on the basis of religion, piety and loyalty to party.
It’s noit just Justice either, it’s all the federal government, including Homeland Security. Playing a pivotal role, though receiving scant attention, has been the Bush-appointed former Director of the Office of Personnel Management, Kay Coles James, winner of the Ditsinguished Christian Statesman Award 2003 and a woman with a long rightwing and Christian pedigree:
[…]
“I believe as Christians we are called to be salt and light,” said James. “We’re also told to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. What belongs to Caesar? If you live in a participatory democracy, that’s your vote, your intellect, your time, your initiative, and your resources.” Mrs. James sets this example by combining her public service with a clear commitment to Christ.
[…]
That commitment has served her career well.
Prior to coming to OPM James served as a leader and manager in Government on the Federal, state, and local levels and in private, non-profit, and academic settings. She most recently served as a Senior Fellow and Director of The Citizenship Project at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage, James served as Dean of the School of Government at Regent University and as Chair of the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. James served as Secretary of Health and Human Resources for former Virginia Governor George Allen where she designed and implemented Virginia’s landmark welfare reform initiative. As Secretary, James was responsible for fourteen state agencies and over 19,000 employees.
Hang on, what was that? She worked for George ‘Macaca’ Allen? And wait a minute…
…..he most recently served as a Senior Fellow and Director of The Citizenship Project at the Heritage Foundation. Prior to joining Heritage, James served as Dean of the School of Government at Regent University
Now I don’t know about you but doesn’t that seem rather co-incidental? As does this:
Before serving in the Allen Administration, James was Senior Vice President of the Family Research Council.
So basically, if we cut in her in half she’s have Bushite Fundie written through her like a stick of rock. She’s a political commissar – and she’s had massive scope and the power to mould government personnel policy and appointments into the ideological shape her superiors in the White House require. And she’s used it, oh how she’s used it:
James is chair of the Chief Human Capital Officers Council (CHCO), a group comprised of the selected officers from cabinet departments and other agencies. Each CHCO is accountable for the strategic alignment of the agency’s work force to its mission, and will be given the responsibility of maintaining and effectively directing its human resources management policies and programs. James is also a member of the President’s Management Council and Chair of the Council’s Subcommittee for Human Capital / Workforce Management. The Council has been charged by the President to ensure the implementation of his bold agenda of reform. James has also been appointed by the President to serve on the White House Fellows Commission.
James has had a major say in every single policy-level staffing decision throughout the federal government. For “strategic alignment’ and ‘bold agenda for reform’, read ‘political purge’ and ‘installation of loyal party apparatchiks’. The policy may have come from Bushco and the GOP but the implementation has come from their loyal coreligionist James.
Pious proud grandma Kay Coles James is up to her neck in Republican partisan malfeasance and the subversion of the constitution , and no amount of Christian posturing can make that OK.
But hey, she’s done quite nicely out of it all, thank you. Wikipedia:
[…]
Subsequent to her OPM position, James took a job with Mitchell Wade, the disgraced defense contractor who bribed Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham in the MZM scandal. Wade hired James with a compensation package that included a $150,000 signing bonus and a $350,000 base salary.
She quit within two months, right after the controversy became public.
[…].
Can’t let that halo slip can we?
Oh, and guess who’s also appointed to the Federal Commission for Electoral Reform? Yup, you guessed it… you’d have to have put your eyes with a sharp stick not to be seeing a pattern here.
If anyone could lift the lid on Bushco’s devious and cynical politicisation of the US civil service , it’s Kay Coles James. She’s definitely one church lady who should be isubpoena’d by Congress.
