Many of you have been asking many different questions about the OSC kerfluffle. I am fairly deep into this now and hope to have a serious piece ready by tonight. Unfortunately, day job and spring family responsibilities (there’s a different school concert every night!) keep intruding. Tomorrow, there is actually one I am looking forward to; I get to help chaperone my daughter’s class field trip to tour, learn about and see in action the county courthouse.
Back to the OSC mess. This is just a short post to run by all of you my current thoughts and ask you to post in comments any links to new and probative information you have run across (for other topics too if they are really noteworthy). So, here goes.
Bloch appears to be a bit of a nondescript, but deeply religious, party level toady that they pulled out of the mid-west, to serve as Associate Director and then Deputy Director and Counsel to the Task Force for Faith-based and Community Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Justice. (Why exactly is there even such an office in the DOJ at all???). The Bushies then wanted to plug a Regent like theobot toady into the OSC, and decided Bloch fit the bill. Bloch then went about doing his job, which was effectively to do nothing and fill up the ranks with incompetent theobot types, just like they were doing all over the government and, as we know so well, especially the DOJ. But Bloch got a little ham fisted in his efforts to weed his office of teh gay in the process, which caused an amount of scrutiny and heat.
About that time, Bloch’s office started being forced into relevance because of all the Hatch Act violations and other things that the Bushies have done to create whistleblowers that are supposed to fall under Bloch’s office’s parameters. This created a confluence of events for Bloch; he morally/religiously really believes in his purge of teh gay and, just maybe, he actually has some moral convictions on the impropriety of much of the Bushco creed. So, he starts actually doing his job on the Bushco ills, just a little, both because he knew there were ills and to push back and protect himself for what he had done. Picture a John DiIulio and/or David Kuo that, instead of just leaving, stayed and fought.
Because of the Rove, Doan, and then the USA Purgegate scandals, this little internecine battle erupted into the public consciousness, and neither side backed off. Bloch was preparing some stinging reports that would really be a poke in the eye to the Bushies, and they wanted to squelch those. The Bushies determined that it would be necessary to take out Bloch, but they didn’t want it to be alleged that they did it to cover and protect Lurita "Cookies" Doan and wanted it to look like they did it for cause against Bloch. So they cooked Doan (she was a pain in the ass anyway by then, so no loss to them) as a preemptory strike in preparation for going after Bloch. Then, they went after Bloch to put the kabosh, as much as they can, on his reports on Bushco. And that is where we are at now.
Again, this is just my best take on it so far. Please give your feedback and criticism, and especially your tips, news cites and thoughts. Bloch is not a sympathetic character in many regards, I would prefer not to be concerned with him; but I think this little sideshow is likely a fairly important cog in the greater scheme of what we do here, so we need to get a grip on it and put a stop to the Bushco power play that is in process. Thanks folks.
UPDATE: Here is a document fro POGO entitled "Summary of Task Force Activities and Recommendations” dated January 18, 2008. Extremely interesting, it details the various high profile cases of the OSC and the task force that was working on them. Sure paints schizophrenic picture of the office, Bloch and the task force. None of them look particularly good to me, but the task force, overall, probably comes off best. Take a look at it.
Hat tip to Phred for this reference!