More evidence that Bush & Co. have been doing their best to make the United States government merely an arm of the Republican National Committee.
Monica Goodling, former aide to Attorney General Gonzales, who initially pled the Fifth to avoid testifying, has now testified that she improperly used political criteria in making hiring decisions at the Department of Justice, including investigating the candidates' political affiliations, reseaching their past political donations, and asking the candidates' references about the candidates' political views. She applied these political criteria to lawyers as well as immigration court judges and other career positions. If she suspected the candidate was a Democrat, she blocked his/her hiring. Federal law prohibits consideration of political affiliation in hiring for career positions (i.e. positions that are not political appointments).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052300728.html?hpid=topnews
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/24/washington/24monica.html?hp
Lurita Doan, head of the General Services Administration, tried to use her agency to help Republican candidates win the 2008 election. She asked GSA officials to attend a briefing by Karl Rove's office about the 2006 mid-term elections, the Congressional Democrats that the RNC planned to target, and the Congressional Republicans that the RNC wanted to defend. After the briefing, she asked the GSA officials how they could help the Republican candidates, a discussion that continued until Rove's representative said the discussion should be "taken offline". Federal law prohibits government employees from using their positions for political purposes. In response, Doan has said she spent the whole meeting working on her Blackberry and that the GSA officials who testified against her were inferior performers. The US Office Of Special Counsel has asked President Bush to discipline or remove Doan.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301372.html?hpid=topnews
I predict that Bush will jettison Doan but keep defending Gonzales. Why? Because a tame Attorney General is very useful to a President. Note the recent disclosure that former Attorney General Ashcroft and his deputy refused to certify (approve) the NSA's program of warrantless wiretapping, which forced the White House to modify the program. Having a tame Attorney General avoids similar inconveniences. (Not that I ever thought Ashcroft was anything but a loyal Bushie, but apparently he had at least one vertebrae in his backbone.)