The US Attorney firing thing gets curiouser and curiouser as more information about it comes to light. Check out this article in the Boston Globe:
Scandal puts spotlight on Christian law school
Grads influential in Justice Dept.By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | April 8, 2007
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — The title of the course was Constitutional Law, but the subject was sin. Before any casebooks were opened, a student led his classmates in a 10-minute devotional talk, completed with “amens,” about the need to preserve their Christian values.
“Sin is so appealing because it’s easy and because it’s fun,” the law student warned.
Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson to provide “Christian leadership to change the world,” has worked hard in its two-decade history to upgrade its reputation, fighting past years when a majority of its graduates couldn’t pass the bar exam and leading up to recent victories over Ivy League teams in national law student competitions.
But even in its darker days, Regent has had no better friend than the Bush administration. Graduates of the law school have been among the most influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001, according to a university website.
One of those graduates is Monica Goodling , the former top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who is at the center of the storm over the firing of US attorneys. Goodling, who resigned on Friday, has become the face of Regent overnight — and drawn a harsh spotlight to the administration’s hiring of officials educated at smaller, conservative schools with sometimes marginal academic reputations.
Documents show that Goodling, who has asserted her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before Congress, was one of a handful of officials overseeing the firings. She helped install Timothy Griffin , the Karl Rove aide and her former boss at the Republican National Committee, as a replacement US attorney in Arkansas.
Because Goodling graduated from Regent in 1999 and has scant prosecutorial experience, her qualifications to evaluate the performance of US attorneys have come under fire. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island, asked at a hearing: “Should we be concerned with the experience level of the people who are making these highly significant decisions?”
And across the political blogosphere, critics have held up Goodling, who declined to be interviewed, as a prime example of the Bush administration subordinating ability to politics in hiring decisions.
“It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally reserved for the best of the legal profession,” wrote a contributor to The New Republic website . “. . . That a recent graduate of one of the very worst (and sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously wrong at the DOJ.”
From Campaign to Defend the Constitution (defconamerica.org)
The recent scandal surrounding the Justice Department’s firing of several US attorneys has inadvertently revealed the dangerous influence the religious right wields over the current administration. While the media is focused on the political firings of these attorneys, the connection between the administration and Pat Robertson’s Regent University — which has seen over 150 graduates hired by the Bush administration in recent years — is a more worrisome reality.
In today’s New York Times, Paul Krugman acknowledges the danger the religious right poses to our nation. Krugman exposes how these “extremists” have long sought to merge their ideology with government policy, a reality that we understand all too well. He also points out just how little attention this serious threat to democracy has received from mainstream media:
“The infiltration of the federal government by large numbers of people seeking to impose a religious agenda — which is very different from simply being people of faith — is one of the most important stories of the last six years. It’s also a story that tends to go underreported, perhaps because journalists are afraid of sounding like conspiracy theorists. But this conspiracy is no theory”.
DefCon was founded to fight this influence and restore our nation’s commitment to freedom, science, and progress — not theocracy. Revelations like those shown by this scandal not only reveal the seriousness of this threat but more importantly how critical our campaign remains.
Please take a moment to forward this news on to your friends and family, encouraging them to join our campaign for freedom, science, and equality. If you’re not already a DefCon member, click here to sign up and receive news and updates.
