That Was Fast:
November 8: Michael Mukasey is confirmed as Attorney General of the United States. November 19: The Justice Department announces that Rachel Paulose, the highly controversial U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, is stepping down.
Eric Black seems to have the inside scoop on the dynamics inside the U.S. Attorney's Office leading up to the resignation.
Eric Black seems to have the inside scoop on the dynamics inside the U.S. Attorney's Office leading up to the resignation.
This was despicable. This was the only way for the locals here to pretend they were punching Bush, and in the process of lengthening their manhood, they rid our government of someone who has the qualities we need in our government.
I don't think it matters in the grand scheme of things, but that's just not correct. The position of United States Attorney is a tremendously prestigious, Senate-confirmed position that usually goes only to very experienced and accomplished attorneys. Its a big deal. In light of that, it was news that Paulose had that job at such a young age. As much as I like Brett Gerry, being a member of his staff is not in the same ballpark.
I should have been clearer. You're quite right that it's possible that Paulose could in theory have more power in her new position, as positions such as the one she is taking can have influence ranging from zero to a great deal. On average, though, the position of U.S. Attorney is considered something "higher" than that of counselor to an AAG/Chief of Staff. I think it also seems a little unlikely that this is a promotion here, as my understanding is that Paulose's connections were to Gonzales. But as you say, that's a guess, not a certainty. (I should add that it's not clear if Paulose is assigned to OLP or to the Chief of Staff, as Gerry is covering both for now.)
I'll go with Tbogg here:
I actually have changed jobs once in less than 11 days but thankfully this wasn't the reaction of my cow-orkers, as evidenced by the fact that a majority of us started a company together a few years later.
(The explanation is complicated, and was mutually agreed to be the result of rapidly evolving circumstance. They would have given me a positive recommendation if I asked, but the resume line-item looked too weird, and I don't feel dishonest in leaving it off given that I was there for less than a pay-period. Oh, and the company is no longer in business.)
Emphasis on prosecuting human trafficking in a city whose municipal LE doesn't seem concerned. Fired.
Hmm.
1) a Bushie
2) in a heavy Dem area and city
3) pushed human whore slavery cases
4) in a town where the local government seems to allow those crimes
5) and didn't stop when she was warned with a brush back pitch
6) from long term leadership level AAs
7) most of whom are dems
8) and now has been kicked upstairs
9) by the new AG or the whitehouse
Thus the Q is, what did the new AG, or the white house, get in return for the investigations coming to a halt?
The title in the Army (and the AF) is a hold over from when the Army was divided into regiments (operating forces), support branches, and the "General Staff" which directed policy and commanded and staffed large operations (over regiment size)
Note his use of language. We can, with some confidence, assume that Elioder is:
A) an Angry Leftist, and/or
B) a Paulian, and/or
C) a Kos Kid.
The local staff not being happy with her is consistent with two theories: that she was an aggressive/abrasive/incompetent/Republican leader and that she had different legitimate priorities than the locals had. I've been following Scott Johnson's and Eric Black's reporting on this, and I've not seen Johnson defend her management style (although I have seen him, repeatedly, defend his friend against accusations of bigotry and abusiveness) nor seen Black give a hint of acknowledgment to the possibility that her having a different set of legitimate priorities might be a significant part of the local office's dissatisfaction with her.
I don't know enough about Paulose or the interior workings of the Minnesota USA's office to make a judgment as to her capability one way or the other.
However
Erick Black's coverage obviously is not neutral, it begins with the phrase
But your "through, informed and intelligent" coverage by powerline begins
Quite frankly, I'm at a loss why I'm supposed to assume that pro-Paulose coverage is intrinsically more "intelligent" than anti-Paulose coverage when they say almost the same thing but from opposite political perspectives.
That is, one argues that Paulose failed because her (conservative) political views got in the way of her being an effective USA, the other argues that her Subordinates' (Presumably liberal) political views made them unwilling to work with her.
I am not the least bit surprised that some Republican USAs have problems with their staffs. Yes, she may have a poor management style. But as likely, and probably as importantly here, it is likely that many of her subordinates in Minn. were far to the left compared to her. That is the structural problem that we see in a lot of agencies when the top levels are appointed and the lower levels are career civil service and the like. And, obviously, in modern times, the problem is a lot worse with Republican Administrations, since a large percentage of the career civil service, etc. are fairly heavily Democratic.
Finally, I love the comment: So true. Not from the FAXes that some have accused the political parties of using, but rather, I suspect, because those on each side of the issue have their "go-to" guys to brush up on the facts with. For me, being on the Right, my first stop was, of course, PowerLine. And the equivalent on the Left.
The notion that PowerLine is representative of "the Right" is a chilling one.
Strangely, when I see a story like the Paulose one, I look at TPM, OTB, the Volokhs, and Balkinization, to see what people given to thinking for themselves have to say.
It also happens [more often] that staff dislikes the personality or management style of a former boss and prefers trying someone new for ENTIRELY non-political reasons. This is bolstered by the fact that the staff suffers no delusion that the conservative appointer is going to appoint someone in line with the staff's ideology and opposed to appointers.
I've worked for several bosses with disagreeable personalities (at best). But they have all been quite good at what they do. Many of my colleagues in such situations disliked the boss for their personality, but quite a few other staffers disliked the boss because, well, he was demanding and expected their best performance, day in and day out. Their primary complaint was not his personality, but the fact that he demanded the highest quality of work.
I have no idea if that's the case here, of course. I don't know anybody in Paulose's office and no nothing beyond what I've read on blogs and in the paper. I'm just saying that sometimes, disgruntled staff use personality complaints to mask their real complaint, that the boss is making them work too hard.
Given the progress of this thread, it's not at all off topic.
Or other threads, come to think of it.
It's the great weakness of the Internet and blogs. People can say anything... and often do. Who needs facts when you have preconceived prejudices?
TempGuest calls the AUSAs "ultraliberal"- however we all know just how "ultraliberal" prosecutors tend to be. Also, the staff had already had six years under a GOP USA with no problems- indeed I suspect the majority of the complaining staff were hired during Bush's reign, and the ones who didn't have spent at least 7 years as public servants, something that should be praised, yet Tempguest resorts to namecalling.
PatHMV makes an unsubstantiated allegation that career AUSAs made up unsubstantiated allegations... oh the irony. I suspect that PatHMV has heard nothing whatsoever regarding the Minnesota AUSAs, and so she's merely attempting to show their guilt by associating them with hearsay she's heard about other AUSAs.
I do however think Bruce Hayden might have a point that there's frequently conflict between top level appointed and lower level employees that are hired due to ideology. However I'm not certain just how liberal the AUSAs tend to be, lets not forget that the United States Attorney offices are basically prosecutors' offices, which tends to attract more conservative individuals (I suspect other offices like the Office for Civil Rights to have employes that are generally much further left). Also, as I mentioned before, theres been a republican in the Presidents office for nearly 7 years now, I would think most of the dust has settled on this conflict at this point. Also, I suspect the new hires during those 7 years tended to be much further right then the ones under Clinton, and thus ideology would not be a significant problem.
From Powerline's perspective, Paulose was the victim of malcontent liberal staff attorneys who didn't like her priorities. But she's very young for the job and evidently has an abrasive style, so the mutiny can't be as starkly political (careerists resisting the Bush Administration's priorities) as Powerline suggests.
From the left's perspective, I guess she's a "loyal Bushie" who tried to inject politics into law enforcement. But how? By emphasizing "human traffickers" as a priority target? It's unclear to me what she did that's substantively wrong or even inapproprirate.
So an evidently bright young lawyer with suboptimal management skills creates a "situation," and it's resolved by sending her elsewhere. Maybe if you're a Minnesotan this has some interest, but why is this a big national issue?
I suppose the answer is that it's the tail of the Gonzales "fire the U.S. Attorneys" story of recent months. But wasn't that about allegations that Gonzales wanted Democrats targeted more than some USA's were doing? Is there any allegation whatever that Paulose's decisions were based on that kind of political partisanship?
What exactly is the big story here?
And what does he have against fish?
To me, that's a big deal.
Some of the sources on Paulose that I read earlier this morning stated that some of the resignation of her subordinates were due to differing opinions over voting rights for Native Americans.
Again, I'm not familiar with this specific situation, but my general understanding was that this was another example of the ongoing dispute between members of the justice department that want to focus on alleged voter fraud among certain groups, and the opposing members that insist this focus on voter fraud is denying members of those (highly democratic leaning) groups voting rights.
Paulose and her allies at DOJ have been very skilled at clouding the waters about why her office rebelled against her. I suggest looking at www.talkingpointsmemo.com if you want a real list of grievances.
For instance (from the Star Tribune)
And my understanding is that her office wasn't particularly mad that they were putting more resources into child pornography and sex crimes, it was that instead of building major cases to take on distributors and producers, Paulose wanted a focus on small-fry cases like this one that Prof Kerr posted a while ago. The logical purpose of going after easier, more numerous, cases was to pump up her office's statistics, possibly in preparation for a political career, at the expense of actual results.
She's a talented individual who is a good attorney, but she has an abbrasive style that created personality conflicts in her capacity as an office manager. A little he-said here, a little she-said there, and it soon became apparent that she would not be able to continue in her current capacity without said office falling apart.
Thus, she was reassigned to a position where she will not be a manager, and the prestige of which is not clearly better or worse, in order to giver her a graceful exit that would neither blemish her income and resume, nor create any new lingering resentments in the office she left behind -- which will, after all, need to work cooperatively with the USAG on occasion.
Do I have the facts right so far? If so, this sounds like a pretty mundane thing which was handled as best as possible under the circumstances (which is not to say that Ms. Paulson is anything other than upset about having to do this).
To all those Powerline devotees who really believe that Paulose got promoted, let me ask you something: What exactly did she do to deserve getting promoted over other USAs with more experience (she hasn't even been in Minnesota for a year) and fewer scandals? Are there any major cases I'm missing?
/(Oh right, she eradicated the Latin Kings from Minneapolis. Silly me.)
Court agrees to rule on gun case
Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 1:02 pm | Lyle Denniston | Comments (0) | Print This Post
Email this • Share on Facebook • Digg This!
After a hiatus of 68 years, the Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to rule on the meaning of the Second Amendment — the hotly contested part of the Constitution that guarantees “a right to keep and bear arms.”
How exactly is that not neutral? Assuming that somebody in the office truly did describe the mood as euphoria, how is it not neutral to report that? He doesn't say they are right to feel euphoric, merely that they do. I know it's popular to assume the MSM is bent to the left, but this is a bigger stretch than most.
Damaging a major, destructive local gang may not be a big deal to you, badger. I live here; from my POV, it's a major accomplishment.
Where's the GPO when you need them?
Prof Kerr: In light of the Washington Post's reporting on Paulose's transfer being caused by her NRO piece, do you still believe that Mukasey's confirmation was causal?
I'm sorry if the sarcasm wasn't clear. Eradicating a gang as large as the LKs from a major American city would, of course, be a major accomplishment, and if she really had done that she should be the new head of the DEA as far as I am concerned.
But, as the story I linked said, she didn't. She wanted her narcotics deputy to exaggerate their accomplishments to her bosses (she was to embarrassed to do it herself, apparently) and he refused.
I don't know what the exaggerated accomplishments were, maybe they really were significant. I seriously doubt she had any direct involvement in the case, since such major drug cases are multi-year affairs and she had only been there a matter of months at the time of the story. But, hey, feel free to prove me wrong Gopher.
If this is the best (i.e., the worst) Ms. Paulose's detractors can come up with, then it seems safe to assume that she probably just wasn't a good manager (plus a little anti-GOP bias in her subordinates). Being a bad manager is a common affliction among attorneys--ask anyone who's ever worked in a large law firm and had to answer to a "genius" partner who couldn't manage a t-ball team.
Ronnie: The conservative definition of "bad management" certainly is expansive. I guess Bill Clinton didn't really sexually harass Paula Jones or Monica Lewinsky, he just "mismanaged" them.
Ordering employees to lie to your superiors in order to make yourself look good, isn't just bad management, it is completely unethical and unbecoming a United States Attorney. It also raises serious questions of the character of a person who would do such a thing. Ditto for someone who retaliates against employees who refuse to lie.
Look, have there been USAs who have done worse, maybe even criminal things during this Administration? Sure, Schlozman in Missouri and Laura Canary in Alabama are the first that come to mind. But that doesn't mean that Paulose's appointment was anything less than a horrible and completely predictable mistake and her behavior lends serious credibility that she was appointed for her partisan loyalty, rather than a genuine belief that she was the best person for the job.
I related my own personal experience in order to establish the general point that some employees sometimes do lie about their boss for bad reasons. Therefore, the mere fact that some of Paulose's employees said she was bad does not prove that she was, in fact, bad. Corroborating evidence would be quite helpful. I did NOT, as I made perfectly clear, recite my personal experience in order to claim that Paulose's employees MUST be lying.
Thanks for giving me a rundown on what she accomplished. Now I read from Badger that she was there less than a year. So we have a bad manager who still manages to pursue her own agenda - Slavery, gangs, etc. Nobody can achieve what she did if they are disfunctional as a manager.
Unless she did all the work herself, someone in the office must have been working with her.
Since that's my agenda, too -- again: I live here; I can't claim to be an uninterested observer -- I like that, and don't have much sympathy for the offended professionals for whom that was a lower priority.
I know, from talking to folks who know about this stuff more than I do that imprisoning gangbanger types for low-level street crimes isn't what most career types in the US Attorneys' offices are terribly excited by, and I think that helps to explain the venom -- which seemed to increase as she was perceived to be increasingly vulnerable -- as well as her connections to the despised former AG.
I don't think that insulates her from a credible charge that she may have been less than a wonderful, or even less than good, leader who ticked off the the AUSAs working for her.
Not terribly politically adept, certainly. We've had the politically adept, locally -- my former County Attorney, who (metaphorically) installed a fireman's pole from her roost high in the CA's office to slide down to the lobby for press conferences, is now the junior United States senator from Minnesota.
Me, I'd rather have a grouch who likes to jail street thugs in both the USAttorney's and County Attorney's offices.
Hmmm... the Federal USA using their resources to attack local, petty, street crime to puff up her numbers instead of concentrating on large-scale (interstate) crime, which is time-intensive and unlikely to have an immediate political payoff.
Another blow for Federalism, and a great use of national resources. Goodness knows that local, state LEO is incapable of dealing with street crime.
If Johnson is credible as a character witness on this particular, it means, absent a very bad misunderstanding, that someone on the staff was sufficiently disgruntled to file a false complaint against her.
That, at least, if true, would be a reflection on the character of the staff with which she had to deal - however badly she may have provoked them.
You'll have to fill us in on the lurid details of Ms. Paulose's Clintonian shenanigans. So far, all we've heard is that she asked her underlings to make her look good to her bosses at DOJ. To my conservative mind, that ranks somewhat lower than engaging in oral sex (assuming arguendo that oral sex is sex--Bill Clinton showed us that liberals have a narrow definition in that regard) with a White House intern on the Conservative Scale of Mismanagement.
1. Johnson is capable of knowing another human being that he can know whether or not it's even remotely possible that she said something once.
2. Johnson knows Paulose well enough to properly make this assessment of her.
3. Assuming that there was no misunderstanding involved, a member of Paulose's staff filed the complaint out of malice and no other reason.
4. If one member of the staff makes a maliciously false complaint, it is reflective of the character of the entire staff.
The story makes clear that she wasn't asking. The nature of the boss-subordinate relationship makes asking the employee to lie pretty unethical anyway.
I'm not interested in ranking this incident with Clinton's actions. My point is simply that "mismanagement" is an improper description of all three incidents.
You can dispute it if you want, but I think it's pretty clear the original blog post takes a negative tack on Paulose. I wasn't even implying "liberal media" with it, it's just pretty clear the post is not amenable to her arguments or explanations for the resignation or her behavior.
The charge of racism (or even of readiness to use racial insults) is a very serious charge. If proven, or even sometimes if not disproven, it can be career-ending - because it reveals or suggests something very negative about the character of the accused individual.
The risk to the accuser, however, tends to be materially less. If it comes down finally to she-said / she-said, it is (at least in federal public service) a blacker mark to have in your file an unresolved charge of racism than to have in your file that you complained of being victimized on the basis of your race, without definitive resolution of the matter.
Now, whether Paulose used a racial insult is not something the public record allows us to determine with any material degree of certainty - something I tried to convey with my conditionals. That said, Johnson's commentary on her character is a point in her favor. The public statements of others (including Democrats) who have known her and worked with her is a point in her favor. The unbalance of risk in cases such as this is a point in her favor. The known discontentment in her office (and therefore the possible motivation for a false charge) is a point in her favor.
None of this is dispositive, but what evidence there is, I would suggest, leans (in this one matter) on Paulose's side.
Certainly, even if the charge was false and malicious, it does not reflect upon the character of her staff at large - only on the complainant. But it is, nonetheless, something to consider when assessing the managerial task she faced.
Rachel Paulose
I guess that's why her willingess to accuse the majority of her staff of being racist was the last straw, eh Anona?
I largely agree. The available evidence suggests that the staff certainly did not like her managerial style, certainly did not like her priorities, and may well have had cause to resent her efforts at self-promotion. There is no evidence that it disliked her for racist reasons. Her insinuation to that effect, to the degree that it applies to her staff rather than to, say, the perceived agenda of some media outlets, was, on the available evidence, fundamentally wrongheaded. The reaction of the staff to that accusation can well be understood.
None of this, of course, changes the balance of evidence in the matter of the racial complaint.
Beg your pardon? Who missed what and is attempting to gloss over what now?
Perhaps you've never worked in a variety of business environments. I have, and have seen petty personal differences and misunderstanding elevated to minor turf wars, either becuase the air wasn't cleared quickly enough or somebody decided to make the issue at hand into their personal grinding ax. I've also dealt with a few attorneys, and am aware that the mentality that produces a good attorney sometimes comes packaged with a slightly overbearing presence and hint of arrogance, so I can definitely see where there would be the potential for a somewhat extreme version of the above when several attorneys are required to work together by fiat, rather than purely voluntary employment associations.
Based on what has been presented so far, I see nothing here to indicate that Pauslon was anything more ominous than lacking in the necessary interpersonal skills to perform the job title adequately. That snippity little response of yours didn't do anything to convince me, either, and suggests exactly the kind of attitude problem that may have been responsible for alienating Paulson from her staff.
Well, it's good to know we agree on the basics. As for the OPR investigation, I admit that it is the one thing that really is pretty much "he said, she said" and that doesn't necessarily fit neatly into Paulose's pattern of behavior. I think it's helpful to point out, though, that people who are not racist do use racial epithets. Because they are so cruel and do have such power, it's only natural (albeit, not acceptable at all in a work environment) to lash out using them (where applicable). Does that mean Paulose used the words "lazy" "black" and "ass" (the allegations are described kinda oddly in the articles) behind the back of African American coworker? I dunno. I don't have the ability to look into peoples' souls like cups of water and neither does anyone at Powerline. Given all the other stunts she has pulled, it seems like a lesser crime, honestly. All I know is that she's bee removed from the office and my taxes are paying for people who professionally conduct investigations into such things.
A woman of color who is conservative is disliked for three reasons. She's a woman who is a conservative, she's a person of color who is a conservative, she's a conservative. See Condi Rice.
None of that is actually racism--it's at least as vile--in the normal sense.
It's possible that's what Paulose referred to.
Maybe the next non-white up and comer will be smart enough to be openly liberal. Or, maybe, they'll realize that they work for their underlings, the careerists who couldn't make it for an hour in the public sector, not the other way around.
Richard Aubrey probably has Paulose's remarks correct as to intent. Her specific target may also have been the media rather than her staff: there is a case to be made that the Star Tribune and the New York Times, among others, would not have looked so sympathetically on the discontent of staffers chaffing under the leadership of a young Democrat who wanted to implement the priorities of a Democratic administration.
Charitable readings aside, however, it makes sense that her staff perceived her comments as an unjustified slight.