Goodling Testifies

GOODLING TESTIFIES....So far Monica Goodling has called Paul McNulty a liar and admitted that she might have used partisan criteria for hiring career prosecutors in the Justice Department. But only a teensy little bit. Honest:

She said she never spoke to former White House counsel Harriet Miers or Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, about the firings. But she admitted to have considered applicants for jobs as career prosecutors based on their political loyalties — a violation of federal law.

''I may have gone too far, and I may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions,'' Goodling said. ''And I regret those mistakes.''

Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., hammered Goodling on her decisions to hire prosecutors who favored Republicans.

''Do you believe they were illegal or legal?'' Scott asked.

''I don't believe I intended to commit a crime,'' Goodling, a lawyer, answered.

''Did you break the law? Is it against the law to take those considerations into account?'' Scott said.

''I believe I crossed the line, but I didn't mean to,'' she responded.

In other news, Goodling is now the latest high-ranking DOJ official to say that, really, she has no idea why those U.S. Attorneys were fired last year, or who made the choices. The list appeared, somehow, but apparently not from any human hand. It's a miracle!