“BUSH’S BUNGLING BARRISTERS”

Or, Why Do the Republicans Only Procure Problematic Prosecutors?

If anyone in the Republican Party had the common sense of an elephant, they’d promptly fire whoever is in charge of recruiting Republican prosecutors. Think about it. Is the entire GOP utterly incapable of finding even one truly competent lawyer within its ranks?

Look at the disaster of Special Prosecutor Ken Starr - millions of dollars and hundreds of staff utterly wasted for years chasing Clinton. It is hard to believe nothing could be uncovered in any of thousands of White Water transactions scrutinized.

Look at the White House counsel selections, Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Myers. They earn the title of Dumb and Dumber. Or perhaps Torquemada and Toots.

Look the circus created by the entire upper echelons of what probably should be renamed the InJustice Department. Monica Gooding for instance came from a law school of the quality that advertises on matchbooks, a place where you “learn” more about the rulings of Jehovah than the rulings of Judge Learned Hand. Out of the tens of thousands of lawyers annually applying for government legal jobs, surely they could have done better than Ms. Out-of-her-League Gooding.

Was she there primarily to make the newest boss, Alberto Gonzales, appear well qualified in contrast? If so, that failed too. The Gonz has proven to be so incompetent himself, he should be referred to as the “Attorney Corporal,” certainly in comparison to John Ashcroft, the prior Republican Attorney General. Of course, that particular boob’s own stature was no great shakes on the universal scale either (as illustrated by his insistence on covering the statute of Justice so that a bare bosom would not show). Remember, Ashcroft only got the top legal beagle job offer in the first place because he was available due to him being so bad at politics he lost his bid for a congressional seat to a dead man.

The dry rot penetrates all levels. As hard as it is to believe, the Keystone Koppers selected by the present Administration to showcase its machoness by bringing captured alleged terrorists to justice are even worse. In the trial of Jose Padilla for example, a self proclaimed and loudly so terrorist, they couldn’t get the death penalty even though the defendant had openly confessed to all the crimes. In fact, due to the federal prosecutor’s committing serious ethical violations during the trial while prepping its witnesses, they came damned close to having all charges dismissed by the judge. Incompetence, they name is Republican prosecutor. The nincompoop prosecuting that case made even “Heckofa job” Brownie appear talented in comparison. It makes you wonder if the Republican prosecutors can be trusted to tie their own shoe laces without an instruction manual written in words of one syllable.

Not a week seems to go by without a fresh revelation of misfeasance, malfeasance or nonfeasance by Republican hired prosecutors. Could they have “passed” their bar exams the same way Bush was “voted” into office in Florida or Ohio? Perhaps Diebold has the concession on electronic grading of bar exams.

The latest fiasco involves the boneheaded prosecutors at Gitmo who managed not only to get three terrorist trials kicked for lack of jurisdiction, the results threaten the entire system of prosecuting those detainees. If you were Al Queda, you’d never want the Republicans to lose power. Despite stripping the Constitution to arm themselves with vast new investigatory and prosecutory weapons that would have delighted Stalin, Republican selected prosecutors still seem to end up shooting themselves in the foot. So much for the idea that it is the Republicans who will protect us from criminals.

Why have the Republicans been so uniformly ineffective in finding and hiring competent attorneys who happen to be Republican? Obviously, there must be many gifted as well as honorable attorneys who register as Republican. Perhaps it is because the “deciders” on who gets the jobs fiercely value loyalty to the Republican platform over expertise, experience, ethics, business sense or even common sense. Actually, it is personal loyalty to Bush that is even more important than loyalty to traditional GOP principles since, after all, Bush seems to ignore much of what the Republicans once stood for. Either way, loyalty is definitely deemed more sought after in candidates than such trivialities as upholding and defending the Constitution as called for in the sworn oath of office of federal prosecutors. Either way, truth, fairness, impartiality and justice for all, once the defining objectives for our justice system get short shrift when Republicans are picking those who prosecute.

One only has to look at the recent firings of the eight regional Attorney Generals. There are only 91 AGs altogether. Canning eight represented almost a tenth of the total. Most astonishing of all is that they were all Republicans and fired not for incompetence (which would be a good reason), but for not being enough of a salivating Bush Savant.

The apparent goal, overtly professed, was to convert the entire Justice department and all its bureaucrats into an arm of the Republican party dedicated toward one goal, achieving a permanent Republican dictatorship. They apparently did not feel they could achieve their goal by mere persuasion or the power of their ideas. They resorted instead to just grabbing power. However, since not everyone who grew up loving our country believes the system should be corrupted for that purpose, not even all Republican zealots, perhaps that explains why only underachievers achieved prosecutor appointments when Republicans are appointing.

In one sense, we probably should be thankful. If the Republicans had selected competent lawyers, their heavy handed attempt to convert our democracy to a permanent Republican controlled dictatorship might have succeeded. Let us hope they don’t find someone better at locate competent Republican prosecutors. That way, the next Administration will get to spend a lot of time prosecuting Republicans.

“IS EVERYONE BUSH SELECTS A WOODEN HEADED, LONG NOSED PINOCCIO?”

Or, Why the Disinformation from the Justice Dept and White House on Their Plans to Fire Local Attorney Generals

Apparently, the Bush crowd prevaricates out of mere force of habit. Its members, especially its leaders, can’t seem to bring themselves to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, even when it is entirely pointless to mislead.

In the most recent instance, Bush was free to fire any (or even all) the attorneys that work for the Justice Department. It may have been highly unusual to do so, extremely wasteful, basically slimy and partisan motivated. But, it was legal. Such attorneys serve at the whim of Presidents, wilful or not, and can be canned, no matter how good they are. The reason behind such a firing is legally irrelevant (unless it is motivated by one of a very small list of expressly banned reasons such as firing them because of their sex or religion).

Thanks to an odious clause the Republicans snuck in the so-called “Patriot Act,” Bush no longer even has to let the replacement appointees be reviewed by Congress. Consequently, he can initially put in top notch lawyers for “show” purposes and then quietly replace them later with the party hacks and zealots of which he is so fond. Or, he could put in hacks and zealots from the start. Either way, it’s perfectly legal. Stupidly legal, but legal.

Moreover, tradition has long held that when new Presidents arrive, they get to have their own party members heading the various offices. Granted, Bush was trying something new with the late term “blanket” replacements and granted there have also been matching traditions that you try to get the best lawyers available for the job and that you should try to avoid the appearance of impropriety. Those all go to help insure perceived fairness of the Department. Nevertheless, since it was only a “tradition,” Bush was free to stomp all over it and thumb his nose at the entire country and legal profession. It was legal to do so.

Why then did Bush and his boys apparently elect to lie about it? They got caught wilfully misrepresenting the reasons behind the firings. They also got caught misrepresenting the extent of the White House’s involvement. They ended up essentially lying to Congress, to the Press and to the People. They seem to be still playing “spin” or possibly outright lying further about the coverup.

Why when all they had to do was announce their usual “UP YOURS!” and proceed to do what they wanted? Unlike the searches without warrants, the violations of habeas corpus, the torturings and the other actual criminal acts for which they will hopefully have to pay in court, it was legal to do what they wanted in this instance. Yet, for some reason, they deliberately strategized in secret to mislead and deceive despite the fact that it would cost them little or no harm to be honest for once.

There is a lesson here for the rest of us. When anyone is found to be lying about even such little things, it strongly suggests they are probably lying on all the big things too, (not to mention operating our government at a level of incompetence that is truly mind boggling). Therefore, the next time a Republican tells you the sun will appear in the East in the morning, perhaps you should check an astronomical table before you rely on it and, while you’re at it, check your wallet too.

“TIPPING THE SCALES OF JUSTICE”

Or, a Few Thoughts Regarding the Peremptory Firing of Several Competent Federal Attorneys in Order to Replace Them with Political Hacks

Once upon a time, back when competence actually was valued and we preferred our bureaucrats to be as fair and non-partisan as possible regardless of who was in elected office, the local Bar Associations reviewed the backgrounds and performance records of proposed appointees for judgeships, attorney general and other key legal positions. It typically resulted in recommendations submitted to the President or Governors as to the relative qualifications, integrity and lack of bias of each individual being considered. The mutually agreed upon goal of all involved, at least regarding selecting individuals to manage our legal system, was to put the best person in office rather than merely the most zealous partisan available.

It wasn’t perfect, but since the Bar Associations tended to have vocal members from all parties, it worked pretty well. As members of a profession whose licenses were accountable to standards of ethics beyond mere politics and having experienced roughly the same basic law school education, there at least was a shared recognition the courts and enforcement of our Constitution were critical cornerstones of our democracy requiring principled people in charge who cherished those concepts more than the opinions of party bosses. Usually back then, the Governors or the President acquiesced by picking one of Bar recommended top candidates for the job. If nothing else, that method helped earn the consent of the governed (temporary voting minorities included), which is yet another central support for democracy.

Unfortunately, the efforts of the Bar to assist, along with many other customs and traditions which attempted to protect the justice system from petty politics, have been utterly trashed in recent years. The Bush Administration in particular for some reason seems to be interested in abandoning it altogether, converting (perhaps perverting) the judicial system to its own image. Which, if any of the stories regarding torturing those in custody, violating of habeas corpus, searching without warrants and other potential criminalities prove to be true, is not a very pretty picture.

Perhaps it’s understandable why those occupying the White House at the moment might want to insure their collective thumbs rest heavily on the Scales of Justice. But, it certainly seems like an extremely risky gambit to try. It’s akin to attempting a “shoot the moon” strategy in the card game called Hearts, where the consequences of failure to win it all incurs an extremely heavy penalty. Unless Bush manages to establish a permanent Republican majority or outright dictatorial control of the US, the attempt itself is likely to turn around and bite both him and anyone else running under the Republican banner.

Either way, the public should insist upon a return to a more non-partisan, more objective, method of researching, testing and selecting those individuals who want to be in charge of day-to-day justice in America.