As we find out today in testimony, "without passion or prejudice" is not what Rove, Bush, Harriet, and Gonzales had in mind when evaluating whether U.S. Attorneys were in-line with the Administration's "priorities". Apparently, it didn't even rank. Why does Texas-style Justice always make me feel like I'm watching The Gong Show?
AS finds an insider's further expose on the Civil Rights Division (original was by Boston Globe, as best I recall):
This administration is also politicizing the career staff of the Justice Department [hey, commiserate with the CIA guys - how do you think they feel?]. Outright hostility to career employees who disagreed with the political appointees was evident early on. Seven career managers were removed in the civil rights division. I personally was ordered to change performance evaluations of several attorneys under my supervision. I was told to include critical comments about those whose recommendations ran counter to the political will of the administration and to improve evaluations of those who were politically favored.
If you dig up the inquiry into how the SEC handled the investigation into John Mack-and-the-Pequots, you don't get more drama than that - watching lawyers question lawyers is always a verbal and intellectual feasty (wikipedia backgrounder). That inquiry came complete with facts that could be construed as DOJ intimidation, even, depending on your view of the merits (but also expressed by some on both sides of the panel).
Last, one reads these accounts about how people "shift careers" and you just have to laugh when you hear some economists excusing all of this as part of a dynamic labor market. All hail the creative destruction of the Pleasure of the President!
