No actually JD, Eric Mink got it wrong again. The only double standards he doesn’t like is when they are on his side. He is flagrant in not writing about some “doublestandards.” Where was his outrage about Sandy Berger?
I can assure you had Condi Rice stolen documents out of the National Archives and destroyed them prior to her 9-11 testimony, Mink would have written a Commentary about his outrage.

Where was Mink’s outrage when the NYTImes outed the name of the CIA agent that put away the first World Trade Center bomber? He was outraged about his pal Valeria Plame but not so much about this poor agent who has had to go into hiding with his family.

I find Mr. Mink to be an outrage as a professional objective journalist.

Bob:

“An internal investigation in the AG office indicated that during the previous 6 years political beliefs were more important than competency during hiring of staff members, these are people who are covered under Civil Service Law and will continue to be there through all administrations.”

If you have any information of staff members being hired in other administrations with less than stellar qualifications in the previous 130 years since civil service became law, you are being strangely silent about it.

More than 50 years ago, I applied for a civil service position in the City of St. Louis. The rule at the time was the written exam counted for 40 percent of the total score and the oral interview counted for 60 percent. Tell me, if I had scored 100 percent on the written test, with rules like that, did any Republican have a snowball’s chance in Hell of being hired in the Raymond Tucker Mayoral administration?

ICON

I am not going to defend the practices in St. Louis Civil Service. However, I do find it interesting that you wish to compare St. Louis to the Federal government.

I am not going to even defend hiring practices in say the DOD or Human Service for the Federal Government.

However, the AG office has always been seen as a special concern. Other offices can deny you services. The AG could send one to jail. So everyone on both sides of the aisle have tried to keep it more independent, until this administration. I also admitted you would not completely eliminate the political practices simply because they are appointed offices. So during an Obama administration if a Republican and a Democrat are close in their evaluation I would expect the Democrat to get the job, the as a Republican would in a MCCain administration. However, we are not talking about the people being bypassed even being nearly the same as the one selected. The bypassed person was superior.

Once again the study I quoted was internal, so it was handled by the AG office and found many problems with what had gone on for 6 years.

So stop being so Republican and saying that has long has we violate the rules it is good, it is only bad when they violate the rule.

A CENTRIST

I was just trying to say he got something right for a change. Ha Sandy Berger should be in a federal pen with at least 20 years to go, without good behavior.

We all know the double standard is alive and well. Let a republican tap his foot in a bathroom stall, it is a front page story, while a democrat cheating on his cancer stricken wife and fathering a child, doesn’t even get noticed.

I note with interest that most of the conservative commenters here are saying nothing about the charge that is being made: that the White House attempted to influence the work of the US Attorneys by demanding prosecution of certain political figures and by demanding protection of others also based on political questions. (And then by firing certain attorneys who refused to play)

If that kind of thing is wrong when a Democrat is in the white house, then it’s wrong when there is a Republican is in the white house. Whether it’s been going on since time immemorial is beside the point. It’s either right or it’s wrong.

hs:

“I note with interest that most of the conservative commenters here are saying nothing about the charge that is being made: that the White House attempted to influence the work of the US Attorneys by demanding prosecution of certain political figures and by demanding protection of others also based on political questions. (And then by firing certain attorneys who refused to play)”

My Conservative comments may quell your interest on the silence of charges of influence on US Attorneys. Is it far better to terminate all 93 US Attorneys because they were appointed by Republicans, making their politics suspect, than to take action on those few holdovers and mavericks whose decisions to pursue or drop charges against Democrats were beyond suspicion?

Talk about a double standard!

Bob:

“However, the AG office has always been seen as a special concern. Other offices can deny you services. The AG could send one to jail. So everyone on both sides of the aisle have tried to keep it more independent, until this administration.”

Tangled in your underwear again, Bob. The AG can send nobody to jail, Constitutional and legal procedures must be followed and I challenge you to find even one US Attorney General that had unanimous confirmation by “everyone on both sides of the aisle,” assuring complete independence. By your warped standards, AG Janet Reno enjoyed the confidence of both sides when she ordered the roasting of more than 80 men, women and children in the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco because some had guns. Had they been genocidal foreign terrorists with the blood of thousands on their hands, your party would have been pleading for love and understanding instead of a fatal firestorm.

Safe–

The difference is you have defamed employees who did NOTHING wrong by claiming they were bad performers.

BTW “read my lips” is YOUR issue not mine

If they had said, ” we fired ‘em because they weren’t Republican enough” I’d be satisfied. Instead they went out of their way to say they were bad attornies…

See the difference ?

ICON

You say that the AG office cannot send you to jail. I do understand following constitutional procedures. I also understand that the government has more resources than most individuals. If the AG office decides to throw 100 lawyers at prosecuting someone, I doubt if that individual can counter with the same legal power.

As to the difference between the AG office and say the Energy department. When was the last time the Energy Department sent someone to prison. They can request the AG to prosecute but they cannot prosecute on their own in criminal matters.

Learn how the legal system works.

Thank you, JD, hypocrisy reigns supreme on both sides!