Gonzales.
Saw a really neat interview with Daniel Metcalfe, formerly the director of the Office of Information and Privacy at the Department of Justice. It centers around the current mess the DOJ is in, and is filled with the sort of candor that only retirement can bring. For me, it dropped some pieces into place that finally make sense of the whole mess: it’s not a vast right-wing conspiracy, it’s not dozens of people lying about overt political firings, it’s just drastically bad mismanagement coupled with reckless self-interest.
Metcalfe was a career attorney who’d worked in the DOJ since the Nixon administration, and he says there were ups and downs over the years, but in terms of politicizing the department, “nothing compares to the past two years under Alberto Gonzales.” Two themes caught my attention:
…there was an almost immediate influx of young political aides beginning in the first half of 2005…whose inexperience in the processes of government was surpassed only by their evident disdain for it…
…that strong tradition of independence over the previous 30 years was shattered in 2005 with the arrival of the White House counsel as a second-term AG. All sworn assurances to the contrary notwithstanding, it was as if the White House and Justice Department now were artificially tied at the hip — through their public affairs, legislative affairs and legal policy offices, for example, as well as where you ordinarily would expect such a connection (i.e., Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel). I attended many meetings in which this total lack of distance became quite clear, as if the current crop of political appointees in those offices weren’t even aware of the important administration-of-justice principles that they were trampling.
So, again, appointments made on the basis of loyalty, rather than competence. Holy Christ I am getting sick of that one. This, in turn, requires people under those appointments to emphasize management’s pre-conceived correct results, rather than fact-based results. I mean, anyone who ever had an ass-kissing boss knows how that goes. But that’s one thing if you’re working for a company that makes plastic forks. How much more friggin’ scary is that when it’s the United States Department of Justice.
