I guess it's forgotten that Ted Olson spend 3mm on legal fees defending himself from baseless partisan attack? "The Attorney General's Lawyer" should be required reading. One need only read that book to get a sense of how Administration lawyers are treated when the opposing party is in power. Hearings, demands for documents, investigations when documents are not handed over (even if there is grounds to withhold the documents), etc.

I was struck by what I thought was Ms Gooodling's very shallow resume and marginal legal training and experience (let alone any political experience)--I can imagine she had no feel for beltway politics.

The problem is simply that one confuses two principles: (A) the new Congress will try to serve the nation's interests, though from a different perspective from the Administration, and (B) the new Congress will try to destroy the President.

I carefully did not mention any political parties, since I think this confusion occurs without regard to party.

I admit I have no knowledge of the type of person who is "usually" appointed to this position. Who was her predecessor, and what experience did her predecessor have?

I think James Comey served as Justice's White House liaison under Ashcroft but his responsibilities may have been more extensive than that.

The Post describes her transfer from that hothouse of secular humanism, American University, to that hothouse of Pat Robertson's febrile dreams:

Goodling and her lawyer declined to comment for this article, and classmates said they did not recall the reasons for her transfer. But "the curriculum at Regent is different from other law schools. There is an attempt by professors to integrate biblical principles into areas of the law," said Dugan Kelley, who worked with Goodling on Regent's moot court.

Ahh, such delicious irony. She invokes the 5th Amendment because Pat didn't teach her the 9th Commandment.

Having worked in gov't many years, I've met the Goodling types. They have this sense of entitlement that they can do absolutely anything that they want, they are answerable to no one, and their judgements are beyond question. Their managers don't much care what these people do, and give them a free rein, until the problems they create start to hit the newspapers and other outside organs.

Then the managers try to deal with the person, who is now so used to unfettered power that they create a problem for the managers. But the Goodling types also know that if they just hang tough, it is highly unlikely anyone is going to fire them. The worst that generally happens is that they get transferred or promoted to a high paying position where they don't have to supervise anyone or do much of anything.

At that point, everyone is happy to have 'solved' the problem, except of course the taxpayer. Trust me, a significant number of gov't employees are paid to sit in an office and not cause trouble for anyone, and the vast majority of them are managers, not the low level employees who actually do the work. (The low levels are the ones most likely to get fired for any reason at all, as Goodling proved with the intern).

I'm not sure if the issue is "young conservatives" — I tend to think younger staffers are taking their cues from more senior officials — but it is interesting how unprepared the Administration seems to be for the realities of having Congress in the opposing party's hands.

Okay I’ll ask the question, if the Bush administration is an example of an administration that is “unprepared . . . for the realities of having Congress in the opposing party's hands,” could you please provide us with an example of an administration that was prepared for the realities of having Congress in the opposing party's hands?

Hattio--

I think you're missing the point. How do we know there's a "Democrat Majority?" From the MSM of course. This whole thing is a liberal conspiracy.

In fact, the Permanent Republican Majority is alive and well in Congress. "Speaker Pelosi" and her crowd are just using their unfair connections with the liberal media to distort all the good that the Permanent Majority is doing.

--G

Perhaps they weren't prepared because they truly believed in Grover Norquist's permanent Republican majority.

However, the issue to which Prof. Kerr alludes is that a lot of the behavior currently under scrutiny occurred AFTER the Democrats had won the election. It seems like the oversight-free culture had simply become pervasive.

What's odd is that some of the documents produced to Congress contain clear indications that the authors were aware, on some level, of the possibility of scrutiny - references to discussing sensitive issues orally and so forth. Yet at other times, the exact same people appear completely oblivious. For example, Sampson's email in which he says we should "run out the clock" and "gum this to death" but do it all "in 'good faith,' of course" is the type of document that, if I saw it from my own client in civil litigation, would lead me to immediately pursue a settlement.

But, apropos of Thorley Winston's comment above, these sorts of things happen all the time, both in the private and government contexts, when people simply ought to know better regarding the wisdom of putting things in writing. At some point we're just talking human nature. At least they're not, as far as I know, taping all the conversations in the Oval Office any more!

I agree with the premise of Interesting Comment. I am just old enough to remember (and comprehend) how long the GOP spent in the political wilderness with respect to Congress and the Supreme Court. I don't think the younger generation fully appreciates how nasty the liberals and Democrats in DC can be and how nasty, ruthless, and cutthroat one has to be in order to engage in political battle with the leftists in DC.

I don't think the younger generation fully appreciates how nasty the liberals and Democrats in DC can be and how nasty, ruthless, and cutthroat one has to be in order to engage in political battle with the leftists in DC.

Oh, yes those nasty Leftist who might actually demand that an administration hire and fire people based on their performance and not because they weren't loyal enough to the party. Those nasty Leftist who actually want you to tell the truth when going before a committee instead of just being allowed to say that you know nothing. Goodling so far seems as pure as snow with the integrity of Honest Abe.

I thought it was the one about oxen and other livestock...

You might also want to consider that the Republicans were unprepared to have Congress under their control. They seemed unable to break out of minority thinking even when they were in the majority and their deer-in-the-headlights reputation was established long before last November.

It may be simply that the party is dominated by political incompetents and its present problems are only the latest manifestation of this..

You know one of the consequences of the conviction of Scooter Libby is that it doesn't raise an eyebrow, for the casual observer of neither legal or Jacobin mind set, when a government official takes the fifth amendment. It's probably safer for them too than taking the Ninth Commandment.

Sounds like she had no experience to speak of outside of Bush country.

Sounds like she had all of the experience necessary to excel in this administration - religious faith and loyalty to Bush and party above all else.