O/T with apologies. Wonder if this will result in a reprimand.

Congress to discuss use of Geronimo’s name in Bin Laden mission

“A congressional oversight hearing originally scheduled to discuss, among other things, how indigenous-themed sports mascots have negatively influenced the perception of Native Americans, will now also address the linking of the name Geronimo to Osama bin Laden.”

LINK.

All lightheartedness aside, it should do everyone well to remember a couple things.

First, for the rest of her miserable dessert-baking, ice-cream social at the Ashcroft’s, Betty Crocker fucking life, she can be referred to as “the unethical Monica Goodling”, “the dishonest Monica Goodling”, “the untrustworthy Monica Goodling”, “Monica Goodling, who admitted being dishonest under oath before Congress” and similar, as well as just calling her a proven (admitted) liar. (Just like the unethical Newt Gingrich, FWIW. And just like the convicted felon and perjurer I. “Scooter” Libby. Good company.) Ordinarily, any of the honorifics I listed above would provide sufficient justification for her to start a libel suit, as these would be considered defamatory per se. But, since she’s admitted she’s unethical, dishonest, untrustworthy and possibly unfit to practice law, she’s fair game. She’ll get really tired of them after a while, but there’s no point in stopping their use. If you don’t hold up deviancy to ridicule or discipline, deviancy becomes the norm. And when she shows up on Fox, we can remind everyone about Fox’ low standards using her as an exemplar.

Second, any time she goes under oath, she gets to be cross-examined to the effect of “you’ve previously lied under oath, correct?” and “You’ve admitted to unethical, dishonest, untrustworthy conduct, correct?” and she has to answer yes. Gets into a lawsuit over a car accident – has to admit it. Gets to have the judge charge the jury they might want to consider her previous dishonesty when deciding the case. Applies for a job – particularly a legal one – has to disclose it. Applies to a bar in a new state – has to disclose it. Has to live with it. This will get to be a real pain in the ass. It might even affect her credit rating.

Not that this will adversely affect her in “market research” – I think their reputation for honesty is somewhere down with public relations professionals and used car salesmen. They’ll probably welcome her as a sister-in-arms.

And, finally, this kind of disposition of an attorney ethics proceeding bears all the hallmarks of a plea deal. She and her ethics counsel made a deal with the attorney ethics police to dispose of a case which might well have led to more serious discipline (like a suspension or the remote chance of disbarment) after a full-blown ethics trial. (Yes, they do try those cases, but it’s usually done in a conference-room setting, not a full-up courtroom.) The thing is, no one wakes a plea deal unless they think they can get off more lightly than after a trial, which means the ethics police had her. You see these “discipline by consent” when the attorney says “You got me. Let’s resolve this.” The ethics trial would have (a) created a record (and no one wants that) and (b) cost her a hell of a lot of money. My suspicion is she’s likely economizing (As did Alberto Gonzales, who on leaving the job as Attorney General of the United States wound up a glorified law clerk to a special master in some patent suit (i.e., a pity job) after being jobless for over a year because no one would touch him.).

As attorney discipline goes, this is serious enough – the vast majority of cases get disposed of without any (public) discipline and there’s a small distance between a reprimand and disbarment.

So, while it only looks like a slap on the wrist, remember this – it will go into the Reports and be there forever. There are a lot of attorneys whose only mark in history is the disposition of their ethics proceedings recorded in the Reports. Not a great way to go.

Any time a Regent “University Law School” grad gets any kind of public spanking is a good thing. Goes without saying that Goodling deserved way worse than this light tap on the wrist, which includes a smidge of public shaming. But in these days of WTF (winning the future) by only looking forward, I suppose this is as a good as it’s gonna get. sigh…

P.S. to Scribe @9 & 11: now stop holding back and tell us how ya really feel!! (I agree: what you hear is my applause!)

Let’s remember, too, that our current president, on the heels of the most criminal and corrupt administration in the nation’s history, did not replace Bush-era US attorneys (as is the custom and practice with any new administration). As a result, we get Bush-style obscenity prosecutions like this one.

Ms. Goodling administered loyalty oaths, not oaths to fulfill the responsibilities of public prosecutor:

Monica Goodling, a previously unknown Justice Department official who served as liaison to the White House, has become a key figure in the Attorneygate scandal. When newly released emails revealed the prominent role Goodling played in engineering the firing of seven US Attorneys, Goodling pled the Fifth Amendment, refusing to testify under oath.

“Why are you a Republican?” “Who is your favorite Supreme Court Justice and why?” “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve Jesus him?”

Even when nominally legal – they were at best questionable when asked of would be career rather than political DoJ appointees – such questions were designed to screen for impermissible political loyalties. They went far beyond asking whether a candidate was a member in the victor’s party. She wanted acolytes who would serve her lord and his anointed president.

Worse, she was encouraged by those who knew better to believe that was doing her job rather than prostituting it. Barbara Comstock was her boss.

Ms. EW was prescient in her 2007 comment, surveying Kyle Sampson remarkably spotty memory in his congressional testimony before Sen. Schumer:

Two “not awares,” four “don’t remembers,” two “don’t remember being awares,” and one “don’t have any recollection,” by my count. Zero “no’s.”

I hate to keep harping on this point. But it seems pretty damn likely that Monica Goodling was right at the center of the inappropriate politicization of career DOJ employees.

You see, I think it highly likely that one of the reasons Goodling is pleading the Fifth is because she caused Paul McNulty to commit perjury. But another reason–a much bigger one, given the centrality of the politicization of DOJ hiring to the scandal surrounding the USA purge, is because she committed regular violations of the laws in place to prevent the politicization of our career employees.

Monica Goodling (and Kyle Sampson, and who knows who else) politicized the Department of Justice, violating the Hatch Act multiple times, in an attempt to plant as many loyal, litmus-test-passing conservative Republicans as possible at the DOJ.

So, how many other Monica Goodling-like conservative Republicans were pulling the same stunt at other federal agencies, people that we’ve never heard anything about, even as they cherry-picked hirees at these agencies in a similar attempt to plant as many loyal, litmus-test-passing conservative Republicans at that agency as possible to fill career civil service jobs?

IOW, if Monica Goodling (and Kyle Sampson) were doing this for years at the DOJ, why wouldn’t other conservative Republicans have been doing the same thing throughout the executive branch at all other federal agencies during the Bush/Cheney years?