George Bush's Lawyers

THE OTHER SHOE....Ever since Monica Goodling, a graduate of Pat Robertson's Regent University, made news by invoking her Fifth Amendment right not to testify about Purgegate, I've been waiting for the other shoe to drop regarding those 150 graduates of Regent that are now populating the executive branch. Via David Kurtz, the Boston Globe doesn't really drop the shoe, but certainly gets it dangling a little further:

In a recent Regent law school newsletter, a 2004 graduate described being interviewed for a job as a trial attorney at the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division in October 2003. Asked to name the Supreme Court decision from the past 20 years with which he most disagreed, he cited Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling striking down a law against sodomy because it violated gay people's civil rights.

"When one of the interviewers agreed and said that decision in Lawrence was 'maddening,' I knew I correctly answered the question," wrote the Regent graduate . The administration hired him for the Civil Rights Division's housing section — the only employment offer he received after graduation, he said.

The graduate from Regent — which is ranked a "tier four" school by US News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place — was not the only lawyer with modest credentials to be hired by the Civil Rights Division after the administration imposed greater political control over career hiring.

And how did all those Regent grads get hired at DOJ? Easy. Bush hired one of Regent's deans to be director of the Office of Personnel Management and John Ashcroft changed DOJ rules to end the practice of having veteran lawyers screen applicants. It seems to have worked well.

—Kevin Drum 3:07 PM Permalink |
From the Washington Monthly