Doing Justice

The tip of my hat to Steve Benen today who posts on justice finally being served to REPUBLICAN attorneys screwed by George Bush's Justice Department. The first was Leslie Hagen, who, despite her "outstanding performance" and Republican credentials, was kicked out of the Justice Department in 2006 because Monica Goodling heard a rumor that the attorney was gay. Like many other people who think their world view is the only one and that therefore they are always right (a kind of insanity, I think), Goodling not only did not renew Hagen's contract, she undermined the attorney at every turn, making sure that she could not get an appointment anywhere in the Justice Department. If hell exists, there is a special place for people such as Monica Goodling. And since I don't think hell exists, I believe it behooves the rest of us to counter-act in whatever legal, moral--hey, and maybe even comedic--way we can the malicious, vindictive acts of people such as this. There is a singular perniciousness in people who vindictively try to prevent qualified folks from attaining appropriate employment.   After a national search to fill the position in the new administration, Hagen was re-hired. (Gee, and she isn't even a Democrat! Imagine an administration that doesn't politically vet all of its Justice hires.) However, as an article on NPR's website describes:

It is not a perfectly happy ending for Hagen. Nobody official from the department ever apologized to her for what happened. She still owes thousands of dollars in attorney fees, and the Justice Department has refused to pay those bills.

The other attorneys Benen mentions in his post are William Hochul --who Goodling got rid of because Hochul's wife is active in the Democratic party though Hochul himself is a Republican-- and Daniel Blogden, who, as U.S. attorney for the district of Nevada, was fired because he refused to politicize his office. Both attorneys have been rehired by the Obama administration.