This was/is clearly one plank of the "Permanent Republican Majority" program. Fear, Permanent War, Voter Supression, Secrecy, Political Use of the Law and Presumption of a Compliant Press.
This is pretty fucking amazing.
Yeah. It's the sense that there's no such thing as being personally powerful or connected enough to be safe -- they can do anything they like to anybody.
allowed to fire literally everyone who was appointed in the last eight years and start fresh?
only jurists?
i thought this happens only in our country's state sector
i think the professionals, who can do their job best, should remain in their respective jobs regardless of their political affiliation
re: 3
Well, governments have always thrown minor criminals against the wall. And a bit of racist bullying of black people and/or the poor.
But this is a transparently motivated political crime. I thought that they cared enough about the appearance of propriety not to do this shit. But clearly they don't. Which is pretty shocking.
Does he not get lemon chicken? How about a salubrious tropical cage living space?
I figure that'll be the next line used. They've already tested it and it worked OK.
i think the professionals, who can do their job best, should remain in their respective jobs regardless of their political affiliation
The trouble, read, is that the Bush admin has not been hiring "professionals who can do their job best:" they've been hiring unqualified party loyalists who literally believe their job is not to advance justice, but to advance the Republican Party.
Scott Horton has been reporting on this for a while, and makes a pretty strong case that the paper in Birmingham is operating as an arm of the run-amok US Attorney (the same woman who botched the Scrushy prosecution after he gutted HealthSouth like a trout; Scrushy is the businessman who supposedly bribed Siegelman to get his non-paying appointment.)
I've asked about LB's question a number of times. Monica Goodling and the others were using political tests to hire career people, and as far as I know they're civil-service protected and can't be fired except for cause.
Presumably if there's any attempt to go after them, Brooks, Novak, Will, Frum, Kristol, Krauthammer and the other criminal enablers will syddenly discover that politicizing the judiciary is a very bad thing. If there's a Democratic administration, it will be a test case of whether the Republican stooges planted in the media have any integrity at all.
"Test case" in the sense of "chance for me to successfully argue my firm conviction that the whole bunch of them are movement tools and sly purveyors of disinformation".
If there aren't prosecutions and firings, American justice will have been permanently and probably irreversibly corrupted. There were no real consequences at all for Iran-Contra, and many of the Watergate crooks have been completely rehabilitated. (In a good way in John Dean's case, but he had repented already before he went to jail. As far as I know all of the others are unrepentant; Chuck Colson is knocking down his grandmother for Jesus' sake now too, and not only for thuggish political puposes, but he's still a thug.)
There really should be 20 or more jailings coming out of the Bush administration, but I doubt that the Democrats will ever have the nerve to try to do it, and I'm almost certain that the virtually-united media will denounce any attempts to do so. Not just the movement hacks, but Broder, Kinsley, Kristoff, Slate, and so on.
i think the professionals, who can do their job best, should remain in their respective jobs regardless of their political affiliation
Read, seriously, I love you but you need to pay more attention to American politics. The whole problem is that political hacks have been hired for career non-political positions.
20 or more jailings
Nice long sentences, too. Naturally.
Horton is the go-to guy for Siegelman, all right.
IIRC, Horton reports that Siegelman's appeal can't get underway b/c the trial transcript isn't finished ... due to the Republican judge's sloth in ordering that this be done. The Soviets would be proud of that one.
But this is a transparently motivated political crime. I thought that they cared enough about the appearance of propriety not to do this shit. But clearly they don't. Which is pretty shocking.
The risk of that is balanced out by the benefit of making it seem like Democrats are just as likely as Republicans to have committed felonious corruption.
My feeling is that we're in a presumption of guilt situation WRT any Bush hires, especially in Justice and the EPA - but elsewhere as well. I'd kind of like to see every Bush hire at a level above toll collector fired and given the option to reapply. Aside from rooting out a lot of rotten people (I suspect many simply wouldn't reapply, knowing they were only hired to be hacks), it would send a message that Reps can't get away with this next time.
It's been said time and again, but it's really the most important lesson of the last 7 years: we need to respond forcefully to the political crimes of the Republicans, or they will push farther next time. Watergate, Iran-Contra, now Bush. Every time the rot has gone deeper, been more pervasive, and people have largely gotten off scot-free.
Regardless of whether BHO or HRC is actually willing to do the above, neither has campaigned on it, and I fear that, without a campaign mandate to do it, they'll waver in office. It seems better to go for a positive agenda, but without this essentially negative agenda (negating the prior 8 years of rot), the Republic will be hollowed out from within.
The whole problem is that political hacks have been hired for career non-political positions.
An alternative explanation is that you cannot remove the politics from the sorts of questions that DOJ addresses, and we want our people in there. Which seems personally reasonable to me.
I don't think you can just start firing people who are hired, not appointed. But you can encourage them to leave. About half of the LA police procedurals that I've ever read refer to "freeway therapy": the practice of locating an officer's command as far as possible from his home so that his commute makes his life ultimately unbearable. I'm sure there's something similar available in the federal government.
BHO has been campaigning on "transparency in government," though. My hope is that "transparency" = investigations = prosecutions = cleaning housee. I also hope that process won't take forever.
15: Mad dog realism strikes again. There is a line there, and Bush unquestionably moved it a long way. The distinction between career and political positions is obviously a slippery-slope, but that doesn't need to mean that anything goes. Even within Tim's way of looking at it we lose, because the Republicans never explicitly accepted that the professional staff should be politicized.
There really should be 20 or more jailings coming out of the Bush administration
Preferably before they find somebody to remove the tar and feathers.
re: 15
Democracies can't work without at least an attempt at a neutral civil service and legal system. We can accept that individuals might be biased. But we can't accept the use of the justice system to punish political opponents. The correct response is not to try and do it back.
Emerson is right, it's mad dog realism.
It's been said time and again, but it's really the most important lesson of the last 7 years: we need to respond forcefully to the political crimes of the Republicans, or they will push farther next time. Watergate, Iran-Contra, now Bush. Every time the rot has gone deeper, been more pervasive, and people have largely gotten off scot-free.
Republicans will eventually succeed in this as long as they have the advantage of being the party that doesn't actually want the government to accomplish anything. When Democrats get into power they have to decide between going to all that trouble to try to reverse the Republicans' degradation of the government and the judiciary, or actually carrying out the goals that made them want to get elected. Since Republicans are motivated by Randian nihilism and have no goals for what the government can do, they can postpone whatever they claim they want to do indefinitely while they focus all their efforts on changing the nature of the state so that it doesn't work anymore for any purpose except empowering their friends.
About half of the LA police procedurals that I've ever read refer to "freeway therapy": the practice of locating an officer's command as far as possible from his home so that his commute makes his life ultimately unbearable. I'm sure there's something similar available in the federal government.
Ah, the creation of 200 new assistant US attorney positions, all telecommuting from Red Cloud, Nebraska. Great idea.
My own solution would be hangings and impalings followed by interment in the bellies of ravenous hogs, but I'm far ahead of my time. Only McManus might possibly agree with me.
That would be some prime pork, though. "We're having Karl Rove / Alberto Gonzales ham tonight. Want to come over?"
A real problem here is that our white-collar crime laws (especially those around politics and political financing) have become so complex that a motivated DA can get any prominent person they want. That's especially true since DAs have a ton of accepted tools to basically suborn perjury.
We saw this before in the Clinton Administration -- there were special counsels going after five different cabinet members, plus several white house staffers and Clinton himself. Most of the charges were totally trumped up -- not just Whitewater, but stuff like the Cisneros case.
It's probably good that the special counsel law is gone. But the incredible tangle of political ethics laws is an issue here.
There's an unnecessary "not" in ttaM's comment.
Alberto Gonzales ham
WORST CHORIZO EVER
Even within Tim's way of looking at it we lose, because the Republicans never explicitly accepted that the professional staff should be politicized.
Who the fuck cares? For someone who wants confrontation, you're giving an awful lot of deference to what Republicans believe/accept.
Fear, Permanent War, Voter Supression, Secrecy, Political Use of the Law and Presumption of a Compliant Press.
That's one too many balls.
But this is a transparently motivated political crime. I thought that they cared enough about the appearance of propriety not to do this shit. But clearly they don't. Which is pretty shocking.
Also, because it's Alabama, there's no institutional support for Siegelman - he's essentially the one strong Dem, so once he's silenced (by being labeled a corrupt criminal), there's no one left to raise a fuss. Mary Beth Buchanan, the rightwing USA in Pittsburgh, is fairly hackish, but is only prosecuting one Dem* for political purposes and, frankly, he was corrupt, if only minorly so. She couldn't get away with something like the Sigelman case, because there's plenty of oversight from the press and a robust (if conservative) Dem establishment.
* Cyril Wecht, celebrity coroner
There's an interesting bit in Obama's campaign website. He wants Department of Justice officials to sign a statement that they didn't receive their posting in exchange for donations or other such favors, and he wants a system to let employees report what they think may be Hatch Act violations (that's using government resources in partisan campaigns, for those playing along at home; goodness knows I sometimes forget which act is which), with investigation and a report required in 60 days. Naturally, if an investigation turns up something rotten, in many cases it'll be possible to get someone both for the Hatch Act violation and for perjury on the affidavit.
It wouldn't be enough, by itself, but it strikes me as a darned good starting point.
Tim, first we'll have to convince the good people of America that that's what the Republicans did, and then we'll have to concede that what they did was OK and we can do it too. That's pretty wonky, and the low-information and normal voters won't be interested and won't understand, the hard right will scream bloody murder, and the wonks and media will almost unanimously oppose us. We'd need a 50-state landslide and a 100-vote margin in the House to get away with that.
But we can't accept the use of the justice system to punish political opponents. The correct response is not to try and do it back.
I'm not sure that's right; maybe the correct response is not to be obvious and not to get caught.
It's more frightening than you think, JRoth. The Alabama legislature, like Mississippi, is actually still majority-Democrat.
(and upon inspection, Georgia's has become decidedly Republican. why has that happened there but not in AL or MS?)
If the feds are like the state, you can't fire people except for cause, through a long drawn-out process. But, if you need to reduce your staff for budgetary reasons, you can make large cuts that are based on seniority. Those people would have hiring preference when the agency tries to staff up again. But you might get rid of the ones who like their interim mob better.
My hope is that the radical change in agency mission and professionalism will make the job distasteful to the Bush hires.
I completely agree with John: there have to be consequences for this stuff. And they have to be handled with the utmost transparency, which is why Job #1 for the last year should have been maximum use of the disclosure, subpoena and investigatory powers of Congress to turn over every rock and stone. That's still Job #1 for the first year of a Democratic Administration. Before any one gets prosecuted, we put everyone on the stand, publish every document, lay out everything. Instead the Democratic Congress dicked around in the last year with the political equivalent of schoolyard pranks, like trying to get Bush in an embarassing position on SCHIP and such.
And the pursuit of the truth really does need to be bipartisan in a specific sense. We wouldn't know half as much as we do know if it weren't for people like Grant Woods or James Comey. I'm sure I have a boatload of policy disagreements with both of those guys, but it's really crucial not to let that get in the way in trying to get a lot of the executive branch back from pure hackery. If you're a qualified professional with an independent commitment to the office, to an ideal of public service, you're what we need, period.
And a world where it's openly accepted that political considerations should drive prosecutions is a bad place. It may be impossible to keep political considerations completely out of the criminal justice system, but that's like saying it's impossible to stamp out murder -- it's no excuse for not trying.
Tim, first we'll have to convince the good people of America that that's what the Republicans did, and then we'll have to concede that what they did was OK and we can do it too.
Alternatively, we could do something for Reason A while providing the public with Reason B. Which is, I think, a fairly standard practice in politics.
Previously on L.A. Law Unfogged, someone pointed out that there's another nicety of the way Bush has stacked the deck here -- in previous administrations, you'd appoint people who might (like my friend the law prof, formerly an EPA lawyer) get frustrated and leave for academia, a think-tank, or the private sector. But by appointing a bunch of movement conservatives who are dopes (like Monica Goodling, newly engaged to one of the geniuses at RedState), who don't have the academic background or the professional accomplishments to go elsewhere, you ensure that they'll be around for a long time to fuck shit up.
36: Right. They're not just politically biased, they're grateful because they're in jobs they couldn't have gotten otherwise.
I was thinking of a Sump and Weedpatch Division, but Red Cloud would be too nice for those people. Among the polygamist renegades in Utah would be OK.
Someone argued that the Bush-era hacks will leave quickly because federal compensation is so low, but that's the beauty of hiring underqualified people. They can't leave, and they're grateful and loyal. Thewir Republican daddies want them to stay where they are.
My hope is that "transparency" = investigations = prosecutions = cleaning house
Who says that BHO's appeal is based exclusively on Hope?
What's frustrating to me is that, right now, the Dems are talking to Dems. If they won't use phrases like "root out corruption" now, they'll never use it in the General. And if they won't use it in the General, then the first time someone squawks "political witch hunt" about firing these Liberty College assholes, President Dem will have to back down.
The route JM proposes could work, but I refuse to put faith in a politician who only hints at doing what I think needs done.
33 - It's incredibly frustrating that the Democrats haven't pushed the matter that lying to Congress remains against the law, especially if you work for the DoJ. And, surprise surprise, when they don't press the matter and start sending Capitol Hill police officers out to issue contempt of Congress citations and instead relying on the DoJ to do something about it, everyone realizes that they're powerless and is encouraged to continue lying to Congress.
And a world where it's openly accepted that political considerations should drive prosecutions is a bad place.
I certainly didn't mean to imply "openly." And I don't think Dem/Republican divides those in need of "therapy" from those who don't need it.
Posted 40 before I see 28. That's actually pretty heartening, because it's a noncontroversial mechanism that will bear LOTS of fruit.
Mmmm, fruit-bearing mechanisms....
39 makes the case that John is the Blair Underwood of Unfogged; this was a good point that I don't think I've seen people make elsewhere, John. When you hire from Patrick Henry University and Regents, there's no way that people can jump ship to a job that's as good as what they'd be giving up. The loathsome John Yoo should be horsewhipped, but at least his appointment to Boalt Hall needn't shock people based on his academic qualifications.
31: I saw, "It's more frightening than you think, JRoth," and thought, "not bloody likely." But, indeed, that is frightening. I wonder if Siegelman pissed off a lot of the Dems.
Y'all caught the bit where the Birmingham CBS affiliate mysteriously lost the signal from New York only for the portion of 60 Minutes dealing with the Siegelman case, right? Don't worry, they rebroadcast it after the 10 o'clock news, when everyone was watching the Oscars!
40: Dunno about this. I'm not particularly optimistic about Obama, and less so about Hillary, but I think if Obama really intends to root out this sort of corruption, there's no particular point in talking about it now.
It's really the media's job to get pissed off about this stuff. Absent support from the media, it ain't gonna happen, but a president has a lot more levers to push the media than a candidate does.
Look at the Siegelman case: DoJ told Congress, flat-out, that they wouldn't provide any of the documents requested. Fuck you, legislative branch. Snarkout's absolutely right: it's time to issue contempt citations now. Don't wait for President ObamaClinton to fix it. Use every power at your command NOW to gain and expose information. About everything. Including, yes, things that the Democrats rely on and use. At every level of government. There was a piece in the NY Times today about a municipal legislator in Hoboken who has to keep suing the government of which she is a part to get information about the city's budget, its business, the permits it grants and so on. Keep on suing, lady. Whatever it costs, it's worth it.
The only way to kill all the vampires who've been breeding in the last eight years (or arguably since 1972) is an asston of sunlight, poured indiscriminately on everything and anything done by any and all governmental bodies within the United States. First legislation drafted in 2009 should be a federal sunlight/public records law that ties the receipt of federal funds by states and municipalities to whether they've adopted an equally stringent transparency standard.
As Burke says, the feebleness of the Democratic response once they got their majority is a very bad omen. For a long time the Dem strategists were telling us that they were keeping their powder dry because they were too weak to be immediately effective. When they gained control they still said that (too small a majority), but they also said that they'd wait because they expected a bigger majority in 2009. Besides the counting-chickens problem, this really makes you wonder whether for some people every reason is a reason for going slow and being cautious.
Of course, a lot of it is that many Democrats are pretty conservative, and a big chunk also only have short-term pork-barrel / electioneering goals and no real philosophy at all. I've heard this being called "unideological", but it's really much worse than that. It's a fatally flawed philosophy of government.
Previously on L.A. Law Unfogged, someone pointed out that there's another nicety of the way Bush has stacked the deck here -- in previous administrations, you'd appoint people who might (like my friend the law prof, formerly an EPA lawyer) get frustrated and leave for academia, a think-tank, or the private sector. But by appointing a bunch of movement conservatives who are dopes (like Monica Goodling, newly engaged to one of the geniuses at RedState), who don't have the academic background or the professional accomplishments to go elsewhere, you ensure that they'll be around for a long time to fuck shit up.
I think we may be overestimating the appeal of a public sector job relative to the private sector, and underestimating the extent to which even an unqualified dope will be able to cash in on the markers owed to this administration. Even the hacks will have little trouble finding private sector jobs that pay better than DoJ, where the pay is slightly below average even for the government.
51: I expect a whole buncha silence will need to be purchased. And there's always room in conservative think tanks and foundations for the kind of intellectuals that Bush has been stuffing the administration with.
press the matter and start sending Capitol Hill police officers out to issue contempt of Congress citations
This is what's killing me about the situation. I've read a fair amount of Brit history, and numerous times, Parliament really showed balls in facing down the King. This Congress doesn't seem to get that they have power, but only if they exercise it. The President will never hand power back to Congress.
I suppose part of the problem is that, while Kings were hereditary, the Presidency switches hands. Individual Representatives have the reasonable expectation that, at some point, they will gain more effective power because their fellow partisan is President. That seems a lot easier than doing something unprecedented, like funding the Capitol Police at $100M so that they become a real counterweight to the DOJ.
49: I think this is basically the problem. John Murtha may be mad about the Iraq War, but he's got no interest in letting anybody poke around in the financial dealings of his own Congressional office: the guy sucks down hogyards of pork like they're potato chips. So this is a real disincentive to mucking out anyone else's stables.
I also cannot shake myself of the impression that HRC would be perfectly happy to inherit an executive with greatly expanded authority and an executive practice of double-barrelled loading up of every possible administrative office with one's own hacks and cronies. Probably Bill figures that this is what did him in the last time, that he didn't spend eight years packing every executive office with low-level Democratic dumbshits who could be counted on to sandbag and spy on the Republican dumbshits.
Obama at least I think holds out some possibility of wanting to clean house in a more serious way.
What I said about loyalty can be generalized throughout the Bush administration. The reason Heckuva Job Brownie was hired because his loyalty could be counted upon. It's true that when he became a national laughingstock and seemed possibly subject to prosecution he wavered a little, but then the fact that he was an extreme lightweight made him easy to ignore.
It's really a ganster way of hiring. Loyalty is everything, competence is optional and dangerous (competent people have sources of information), dependency is a plus, and integrity is a big minus.
Some of the big losers in the Bush administration were the little-government conservatives and the Christians. The only winners were the anti-tax people. The warmongers even lost; Bush's pork-barrel incompetence may have discredited the idea of war.
My guess is that some of the hacks will be kept in place with promises of various sorts, and some of them may be blackmailable.
50, 51: How many people are we talking about? Remember, it's not just the DOJ - we should assume that every executive department has been larded with malevolent incompetents, for 8 years. That's gotta be 10s of 1000s of people, any 2 of whom are enough to undermine Good Governance. They won't all quit, and there isn't room enough to shove them into think tanks. ExxonMobil is too smart to want them. Maybe Amway and Blackwater.
And even if the incompetence hasn't discredited the idea of war for the public, it's made it harder to actually fight wars. At least some of the warmakers actually do want to kill people and blow stuff up, and aren't any wilder about gear that won't work and people who can't use it safely than, oh, me.
Whenever anyone says "pork" anymore I think of a slice of that delicious Rove Pork. I'd pay $500 for an authenticated slice of that. Mmmmm.
[Just kidding, Red State! No impalings are planned. We don't even have any hogs. But you're wrong about one thing. That would not be cannibalism.]
56: Thinking it over, my guess is that the Republicans would try to keep a few key people on board for a 4- or 8-year delaying action, and that a few people with very sensitive information would be bought off. They don't need everyone to stay.
I think I am naive, probably because I have been lucky enough in my professional life never to have been asked to do anything morally offensive to me (long ago there was a danger of tobacco company work, but I dodged that bullet without having to go Atticus Finch), but my gorge rises at the thought of being ordered to do the least of the things that Bush appointees seem to do enthusiastically. Is being a U.S. Attorney in Nowheresville, Alabama so sweet a heaven?
I, Karnak the Rastafarian, predict that there will be a lot of pressure on any new Democratic president to keep a lot of Republican officials on as a show of bipartisanship, healing the wounds, and all that stuff. Bill Clinton did so with (IMHO) generally disastrous effects, but the kinds of disaster he had are just fine with the bipartisanship crowd. One of the things that we'll have to do a lot of if a Democrat wins in November is keep the pressure on for appointments.
(As a general thing, I expect that a Democratic term in the White House will require me to do a whole lot of pressuring. The only real difference is that some of it won't be guaranteed futile.)
60: The vast majority of Bush people are either completely vicious cynics, or idealists who think that they're doing God's work. A few re both, of course.
every executive department has been larded with malevolent incompetents, for 8 years.
Well, yes and no. My friends at the federal water agency who pre-dated the Bush administration, fought a long quiet battle to keep the influence from being permanent. They tell me that working there sucked. Their recommendations were overturned; high-level hacks were constantly in the Regional Director's office, demanding stuff. But, they're the mid-level managers who do the hiring for entry positions, and they simply didn't hire. They let positions sit empty for years. An old friend of mine keeps asking me to come back, but not until the new administration.
Some of the career civil servants may have found ways to limit the damage to their offices.
How many people are we talking about? Remember, it's not just the DOJ - we should assume that every executive department has been larded with malevolent incompetents, for 8 years. That's gotta be 10s of 1000s of people, any 2 of whom are enough to undermine Good Governance. They won't all quit, and there isn't room enough to shove them into think tanks.
Tens of thousands seems way too high - most people in the government aren't working on matters that offer an opportunity for malevolent incompetence. There's limited value in putting hacks into a purely ministerial position. Similarly, the government has plenty of positions where even the least qualified and most malicious hack can only do so much damage. The important thing is clearing them out of the critical areas.
ExxonMobil is too smart to want them. Maybe Amway and Blackwater.
ExxonMobil will definitely want their share of hacks - they'll just be smart enough not to put them in a demanding job. The value of hacks is that they know and can provide access to the people who will be making decisions in the next Republican administration. They may even *be* the people making important decisions in the next Republican administration. The jobs will be there.
John, about The vast majority of Bush people are either completely vicious cynics, or idealists who think that they're doing God's work.: I've known some politically ambitious fundamentalists, and they all had a really strong antinomian streak. Because they're doing God's work, everything is licit; because their enemies are opposing God's work, nothing is ever acceptable. I think there are some belief systems that make things like cynicism and honesty sort of irrelevant, or just plain meaningless, and I'd say those guys were in such a zone.
Christ, SomeCallMeTim seems fine with the the US lurching towards Banana Republicanism. What part of "Liberal Democracy can't exist without a nonpartisan civil service and legal system" do you disagree with? Or is that not a worthwhile or achievable goal?
52: You want to know the ugly truth? There isn't room in all the conservative think-tanks for the tidal wave of flunkies and hacks that will be outflowing from various institutions in the next four years. I've watched more than a few people remodeling themselves over the last eight years into more and more slavishly, desperately hackish public figures, hoping to get a piece of the pie, and there just doesn't seem to be enough pie to go around. So it'll be interesting to see what some of those folks do next. They've gone so deep into the swamps and burned so many bridges that I think there isn't any plausible way back to respectability.
60: It's not that being the deputy AG of East Bumfuck, Nowheresville is so sweet a plum. It's that some of the Monica-Goodlings who sold their souls for such prices were so dumb and untalented that there was never any hope that they'd find anything better anyway. The alternative for some of them is the white collar equivalent of burger-flipping.
white collar equivalent of burger-flipping
Ack that's freelance journalism isn't it!
Gabriel, you may underestimate the harm a whole hierarchy of incompetents can do, and how desirable that is to the ideologues and power-mongers at the top. At least some of the leaders have written and spoken openly about wanting a society in which most people are scared for their prospects, and feel no sense of security from any source except via loyal service to their bosses. With that kind of aim, it's a good idea to make every branch of the government unreliable - unpredictably variable as well as generally incompetent, to knock out grounds for trust in government service to any standard. Furthermore, at least some of the grand vision-setters are people who practice deceit as a matter of habit, even when it's not necessary, and who will calculatedly choose to destroy a whole system rather than settle for a smaller piece of a larger pie. If it makes others worth off, it's worth doing, for some of them, and they don't seem to get overridden much.
Ack that's freelance journalism isn't it!
Kinko's, I think.
By the way, I may as well register here my recurring dread that something will come up to justify suspending elections between now and November. It's not so much that I expect as that the administration and its allies seem so utterly unconcerned with succession issues, I can't help wonder if they have in mind some public disaster they can exploit to show that elections are unsafe or something. I'd normally tell myself that that's just paranoia speaking, but...with this bunch? I have to assume they've talked about it, and it comes down to whether they regard it as practical in terms of a thoroughly alien value system.
I note also the bit at the end of this post from Hilzoy, in which a US attorney actually did argue that bombing the habitat of endangered birds would make bird watchers happier, because it's more fun to spot rare birds than common ones. This is why I don't feel my standards of sense are very relevant.
I think the Eighth Amendment is worth hanging on to, but I would be almost certainly outraged if no one in this administration goes on trial, or probably even worse, goes on trial but gets exonerated.
Speaking of which, there are a few Republicans around here, aren't there? If this is getting too personal then let me know, but I admit I'm wondering what they think of this.
At least some of the leaders have written and spoken openly about wanting a society in which most people are scared for their prospects
64 is heartening. Bless the Honest Bureaucrat.
65:I'm not really willing to accept incompetent hacks at any level. Come next R administration, those people will be in a position to be promoted to malevolent hackery.
Obviously, non-hacks were hired for mid-level jobs in the last 8 years, if only because it took awhle to get the machinery rolling (a close friend who's a Dem was hired in early 2001 at the DOEnergy). But note Megan's anecdote in 64: positions had to sit empty lest they be filled with hacks, and these are positions a few steps down the ladder from political appointee. I don't see how anything good can come of having a Goodling clone playing any role (above, as I said, toll-taker - that seems about right) in our government (Mine Safety, anyone?).
ExxonMobil will definitely want their share of hacks
Well, again, the top-level ones, sure. But the GS-8 people? They might have enough juice to help themselves in the next R admin, but not enough to help anyone else. And there are 135k GS-7 + GS-8 people outside the DoD. Of course most of those aren't new hires, but a civil service career is usually some 30+ years, which suggests a 25% turnover in the last 8 years.
Kinko's, I think.
Hey! The manager of my local Kinko's is plenty competent.
OK, yes, and cute, too. But mostly competent!
The manager of my local Kinko's is plenty competent.
I worked for Kinko's for two or three years soon after college. The only real difference between that job and flipping burgers is that you don't smell like grease at the end of the day. And no free food.
a US attorney actually did argue that bombing the habitat of endangered birds would make bird watchers happier, because it's more fun to spot rare birds than common ones.
Holy crap:
Moreover, he added, the birds would benefit as well, since using their nests as a bombing range would minimize "human intrusion".
What worries me: while people tend to focus on the significance of Bush's Supreme Court appointments, his administration has also appointed many (about 200?) judges to the federal lower courts. These are lifetime appointments, of course. How many of these judges are hard-core ideologues?
73: I've always suspected they're playing a longer game. Give the D's an intractable mess, work like hell to make sure they're the ones that get blamed for it, and back in office in 4 years. If done well, they could be in much better shape than they are now, with little practical damage done to their agenda. McCain as a throw-away candidate makes sense in that scenario, too.
How many of these judges are hard-core ideologues?
As many as they could possible manage, one has to assume.
73: I've always suspected they're playing a longer game. Give the D's an intractable mess, work like hell to make sure they're the ones that get blamed for it, and back in office in 4 years. If done well, they could be in much better shape than they are now, with little practical damage done to their agenda.
This is basically what I said in the first part of 20. They can do this indefinitely, as long as they can convince voters to be cynical in a "Politicians are silly boobs and they lie to get elected" way instead of a "These guys really do want to destroy America for the benefit of the rich" way.
Soup Biscuit, in an odd sort of way, your #80 is kind of reassuring.
This is what's killing me about the situation. I've read a fair amount of Brit history, and numerous times, Parliament really showed balls in facing down the King. This Congress doesn't seem to get that they have power, but only if they exercise it. The President will never hand power back to Congress.
This is also one of my pet frustrations. CONGRESS! Be more jealous of your power! Please!
Obama cements the Katherine vote!
ExxonMobil will definitely want their share of hacks - they'll just be smart enough not to put them in a demanding job. The value of hacks is that they know and can provide access to the people who will be making decisions in the next Republican administration.
You're right, they will all become lobbyists.
Moreover, he added, the birds would benefit as well, since using their nests as a bombing range would minimize "human intrusion".
He may have been playing off this kind of thing.
Military reservations sometimes do become effective wildlife sanctuaries, since agriculture, residential construction, etc. don't happen there. This doesn't necessarily in the case mentioned, which I didn't read about.
What part of "Liberal Democracy can't exist without a nonpartisan civil service and legal system" do you disagree with? Or is that not a worthwhile or achievable goal?
Not achievable, as said at the very first. Some of these things are inherently political decisions. The claim that this is purely an issue of competence makes us feel better, so I suppose it serves that purpose. But in the end, where my values conflict with Southern Conservative values, with no technical mechanism to decide between them, I want mine respected.
It is true that wildlife does better on bombing ranges than on open lands. The intrusion from the noise and bombing itself is better than having people around.
But that judge's reasoning (scarce birds are more fun!) is effed up.
They've gone so deep into the swamps and burned so many bridges that I think there isn't any plausible way back to respectability.
I don't remotely think that's true. Look at the pro-war Dems; have any of them paid a price? Look at the neocons: being wrong about everything turns out to be an excellent line to have on one's resume in the right circles.
88: Mad dog realism meets slippery slope.
There have been some actual cases of civil services supposedly staffed by nonpartisan professionals. Tim's mission, should he choose to accept it, is either to show that all of these civil services were, in fact, completely partisan, or else that nonpartisan civil services are, on the balance, consistently worse than partisan civil services. In particular, that they never serve as a valuable restraint on the party in power.
This in no way implies that I have lost my taste for Rove Ham.
Megan, if more species were endangered, we could preserve more endangered species. I don't see why you find that so hard to understand.
For all your pious pronouncements, in the end you obviously don't even care how many endangered species we save. In Megan the corruption of fascist liberal environmentalism is bold and unashamed.
Megan, if more species were endangered, we could preserve more endangered species.
This is brilliant. I intend to make this Paradox of Endangered Species the center of my dissertation.
Tim's mission, should he choose to accept it, is either to show that all of these civil services were, in fact, completely partisan, or else that nonpartisan civil services are, on the balance, consistently worse than partisan civil services. In particular, that they never serve as a valuable restraint on the party in power.
Give me a clear and easy method of measuring "partisan" to which all sides agree first, and we'll see. If you have that lever, I guarantee someone will use it, even if I don't.
Iff the Democrats win a landslide victory this fall, both the media environment and the political environment will change drastically. I think that's true even if most Democrats run fairly moderate campaign. One of the exasperating things about politics, sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad one, is the weak links between ideology, election strategy, and actual political behavior.
For example, if a lot of McCain-hating Republicans vote for Obama -- and they might -- what does it mean ideologically? Nothing much, but it does mean that a lot of Republicans jumped ship for reasons that they themselves may not understand at all. A weakening of committment to a cause or disillusionment with its leaders function like an ideological change without being one.
You're demanding that I solve the slippery slope problem once and for all, Tim?
You're a clever one, Tim. I can't! Abortion is murder, birth control is murder, abstinence is murder, and Karl Rove Ham is Karl Rove himself!
You're demanding that I solve the slippery slope problem once and for all, Tim?
Don't sell yourself short, Emerson. You described a problem with an important term that, as you admit, has to stay more or less undefined. I only followed the path you first trod, as is so often the case in these student-teacher relationships.
Tim, what definition of "partisan" are you using? Maybe that's a place to start. What counts as decisive or at least influential evidence that nonpartisanship as a civil service feature never really exists much? (I hope this doesn't sound confrontational. I've done my share of angry ranting elsewhere for the day, and am hoping to actually have some conversations now. If I need to rework anything, please do feel free to say so.)
By the way, by "definition" I don't mean some perfect formulation that excludes all ambiguity. Na ga happen. Something clear enough to allow looking at a situation and say "yeah, it's in" or "no, it isn't" with reasonable reliability's all I'm after here, and I'm really more interested in actual cases and how they lead to your assessment (or anyone else's) than labels following.
Tim, what definition of "partisan" are you using?
I'm saying that there isn't a particularly useful definition of "non-partisan" available. I don't know what it means. "Partisan"? "Adherent of a party" works for me, but I don't think that there are only two parties to choose from.
Emerson, I have no words. You've exposed the fraud my internet persona is based on.
Tim, just take five commonly accepted definitions of non-partisan. Some non-partisan civil services will probably satisfy all six definitions, and some only some of them. But whatever your definition is, no civil service will satisfy it. You've clearly told me that. So my definition of "nonpartisan civil service" is "Non-partisan in one of the commonly-used senses, rather than in Tim's sense, whatever it is".
Or you could use an ostensive definition and enumerate non-partisan civil services and partisan civil services. For example, you could point to civil service practices in several American administrations and enumerate the partisan and nonpartisan aspects of each.
And now he comes out for the Green party! SomeCallMeTim is trying to piss me off.
"six" => "five". We regret the error.
I still want to hear from a Republican about this.
Hey, what's the best link (or a persuasive link) for the "no wrongdoing at all by Siegelman" claim? Is it the 60 Minutes story, a post by Horton? I ask because I thought the initial reporting was "wrongdoing by Siegelman, supposed evidence of this wrongdoing which was presented by the prosecution didn't support their claims, so he should've been found innocent." And now that seems to have changed, or it's possible I'm poorly recollecting.
108: OINK!!!
The linked Horton post works. What he was accused of: appointing a donor (and, you know, not even identified as a donor to him personally in any sense) to a political appointee position is absolutely conventional. That's how you get to be an ambassador -- you give campaigns money. It's not conduct that's conventionally regarded as prosecutable.
They also didn't prove it -- the failure to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense is a scandal in itself. But if they'd proven what he was accused of, it wouldn't be anything that isn't openly done by every administration.
Tim, just take five commonly accepted definitions of non-partisan. Some non-partisan civil services will probably satisfy all six definitions, and some only some of them. But whatever your definition is, no civil service will satisfy it. You've clearly told me that. So my definition of "nonpartisan civil service" is "Non-partisan in one of the commonly-used senses, rather than in Tim's sense, whatever it is"..
Let me make the same claim about the media, and note that Katherine (hardly conservative) has tried to show that, by and large, the media is non-partisan in just this way. (If I'm misrepresenting Katherine, I apologize to her.) Yet you refuse to concede that the media is non-partisan. What precisely make the media special, or, alternatively, the civil service special?
Here's another Horton article:
And the more we dig into this case, the more irregularities mount. Let's start with the charges against Siegelman. The main accusation is that he appointed HealthSouth's scandal-ridden CEO to a state oversight board, and in exchange a donation was made to a not-for-profit education foundation which was supporting Siegelman's efforts to secure a lottery to fund the state's education system. You might very well ask what would be corrupt about this, and you would be right to ask. This is almost exactly the sort of accusation that the federal prosecutor in Milwaukee, faced with Rove's threat to fire him, brought against Thompson - and that the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals labeled as "preposterous." And indeed, it's the sort of thing that transpires in the American political environment every single day. For instance, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on a Donald Trump television program recently, and Trump made a payment of ten thousand dollars to help Schwarzenegger "retire his campaign debts." Was that corrupt? Added to this is the fact that HealthSouth had no interest in anything before the oversight board in question, and its CEO had been appointed to the same board by three prior governors. This is corruption?
But still more striking - astonishing by any measure - is how this same U.S. Attorney and Department of Justice dealt with Siegelman's successor, current Governor Bob Riley. Riley and many of his senior-most associates are closely tied to Jack Abramoff, perhaps the single most scandal-ridden figure in U.S. political history. I have detailed some of these relationships earlier. Documents that surfaced in the Abramoff investigation suggested that in exchange for millions of dollars in campaign contributions from a Mississippi tribe with gaming interests to his gubernatorial election campaign, Riley would ensure that an Alabama tribe then seeking a license would be blocked. In fact the millions flowed into Riley's coffers, and he in fact took steps to block the license sought by his own constituents. So what did the U.S. Attorney, Leura Canary, do? Instigate an investigation for corruption? Bring evidence before a grand jury? No. In fact, Mrs. William Canary seems suspiciously involved in the entire scheme. Indeed, she secured appointment to the licensing board for the matter.
And perhaps one should take a second to scrutinize Governor Riley's appointments to the same board. Riley appointed to head the board a certain Dr. Swaid Swaid, a man who made contributions to Riley's gubernatorial campaign during the election, and a hefty sum after the election was over, when his appointment was under consideration. Moreover, Dr. Swaid has personal interests before the board - it approved an invention of his. I am not suggesting that there was anything wrong with Dr. Swaid's appointment. But these facts make abundantly apparent that in the mind of the federal prosecutors there is one standard to be applied for a Democrat, and an entirely different standard for a Republican. That's corrupt.
Well, I claim that the media acts unprofessionally in a mostly Republican-leaning way. A partisan civil service would act unprofessionally and lean in one political direction. Some do. Do all of them?
Neither a media organ nor a civil service office can be completely value-free or completely issue-neutral. That can be restrained by professional standards, and they can refuse to serve as errand-boys for political parties and for office-holders.
Look at the pro-war Dems; have any of them paid a price?
Tim, you're obliterating relevant distinctions. I don't see how you can equate public support for a popular war with clandestine support for lawbreaking.
But even if you can make that link, certainly Joe Lieberman has been inconvenienced by his war support, and Al Wynn (Md incumbent Democrat) just got crushed in a primary election because of it.
Hillary Clinton and John Edwards ain't gonna be president, and there's a perfectly reasonable case to be made that their war support played an important part in this.
And, of course, the Democrats weren't the biggest war supporters. The Republicans (finally) lost Congress in large part because of the war and related malfeasance, and it ain't looking good for them in the next election.
Sure, the political climate influences the zeal of prosecutors, but it won't take much of a change in the political climate for people to start frowning on prosecutions based on trumped-up charges.
Thanks LB. Though the post you quote in 113 also says: "There is a second significant charge brought against Siegelman, namely that he accepted gifts from lobbyists. The record on this is still undeveloped, but what I have seen is very strange. For one thing, it shows that the prosecutors were from the outset obsessed with obtaining a conviction of Siegelman to the extent that they exhibited an attitude of total indifference towards other, far more serious crimes, particularly potential crimes involving Republican officeholders." So I don't know about no wrongdoing. I'm just trying to figure out how I should tell people about this case if I'm talking about it.
115: You're confusing two different arguments in this thread. The bit you quote referenced Burke's comment in #68 about the hacks moving to the private sector. The relevant people on the Dem side to look at, it seems to me, would be Beinart, et. al.
116: Yeah, but he wasn't convicted on those charges, which suggests (given the circumstances) that they didn't happen. The main accusation against him was the 'bribery'.
Why aren't more elected Democrats up-in-arms about this issue? The exculpatory details have been known for years now, and self-preservation would seem to demand that something be done.
It's worth remembering that the Republicans quite conceivably stole the election in the first place. (Siegelman was edging Riley in a squeaker, and then some Republican voting officials did a recount without any Democrats present -- they had gone home for the night -- in violation of state law. Surprisingly, they disallowed a bunch of Siegelman votes and Riley won! Who'dathunkit.)
There aren't even "Free Siegelman" t-shirts. Market failure!
Why aren't more elected Democrats up-in-arms about this issue?
Ask a Democrat.
117: Ah, I see what you mean. Pardon me.
There aren't even "Free Siegelman" t-shirts. Market failure!
I'm getting mine as soon as Mumia is free.
Did y'all see the Rove video*?
* No pigs.
I'm with Megan. There are still many, many competent and professional people working for the federal government, including plenty of hires made during the Bush Administration. There's a definite hack infestation problem, but some of the comments on this thread are way overstating its scope.
Megan also mentioned that she had left, and we know that others have left, and Megan mentioned that her friends hung on in very unpleasant circumstances. I don't see that her testimony is evidence that the problem is smaller than we think.
I wasn't relying on Megan's testimony, but on people I know and/or have worked with.
Civil service honesty is maintain by a combination of norms of service and honor and the occasional arrest. The next President needs to appoint honorable people (they can be non-partisan, perhaps a few Reps, there are honorable ones) and get the single worst Bushie in jail.
No, around 20 of them have to be fed to hogs. I'm going to move the fucking Overton window for you guys. Nothing less will satisfy me.
People, people, let's join together in peace and harmony and get things done for the American people. We can send plenty of Bush hacks to prison and still have plenty left over to feed to the hogs. Comity?
Um, there are some pretty clear and definable components to a non-partisan or "non-partisan" civil service. No campaigning on the job or with the use of the resources of your government position. No tests of partisan affiliation required for hiring (similar rules apply for promotions, firing, etc.) That sort of thing.
Sure, you're not going to prevent some people from being partisan in their hearts, and there will be people who break the rules - who should face consequences for that - but there are some institutional steps you can take in between being as partisan as the Bush system and as nonpartisan in an impossibly ideal way.
"as nonpartisan as an impossibly ideal system"
Isn't the British (and such like) civil service pretty well non-partisan?
It just seems that way because they all have such nice RP accents.
Yeah -- I mean, it isn't like RP accents are class linked...
134, "non partisan" is the official stance of the British civil service. In the upper echelons, that pretty much means "support the status quo" - which is not necessarily the same thing.