No Smoking Gun From Goodling

National Review Online: Testimony Leaves Conspiracy-Minded Dems Disappointed

(National Review Online)  "Did you ask people who applied for jobs as [assistant U.S. attorneys] anything about their religion?"

"No, I certainly did not."

"Ever had religion discussions come up?"

"Not to the best of my recollection."

Cohen pressed. Hasn’t the Justice Department hired an unusually large number of graduates of Regent?

"I think we have a lot more people from Harvard and Yale," said Goodling.

"That’s refreshing," said Cohen, a graduate of the University of Memphis School of Law. "Is it a fact — are you aware of the fact that in your graduating class 50 to 60 percent of the students failed the bar the first time?"

At that point, hisses and hoots began to be rise from the Republican side of the dais, and, for just a moment at least, 2141 Rayburn sounded a bit like the House of Commons. Goodling assured Cohen that she had passed the bar the first time around.

What was particularly odd about the moment, at least for a hearing not devoted to the state of U.S schools, was that it was the second time the subject of higher education had come up in the space of just a few minutes. Earlier, Democratic Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee was very concerned that Goodling had asked about the political leanings of a job seeker named Seth Adam Meinero, "a graduate of Howard University, one of the top, outstanding law schools in the nation." (Rep. Cohen did not protest, even though Howard's bar-passing statistics don't measure up to Regent's.) Goodling said she regretted making a "snap judgment" about Meinero's supposed political leanings, although she stressed that Meinero ultimately got the job he was seeking.

Rep. Jackson Lee also caused a few observers to scratch their heads when she opened her questioning of Goodling this way: "Allow me just to simply begin a series of questions, Ms. Goodling, and I would ask that they — your answers — be as cryptic and as brief as possible, however truthful, because we do have a shortened period of time."

"Cryptic?" whispered one reporter. "Did she say cryptic? I think she did."

Indeed she did. But Goodling did not follow Rep. Jackson Lee's directions. In fact, her answers were quite clear and direct.

That is, when she got the opportunity to answer the questions put to her. Later in the hearing, Jackson Lee, by then taking a temporary turn in the chairman's seat, had to restrain fellow Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, who was so anxious to question Goodling that he seemed uninterested in her answers.

"So you all bypassed a chief of [the Civil Division] and went to somebody who had no experience in management simply because they were a liberal?" Ellison asked Goodling.

"No, not at all," she answered. "There were other reasons involved in the decision."

"Now — "

"To clarify, we — "

"No, I don't need a clarification," Ellison said. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Well, I would like to complete my answer."

"Well, I don't need an answer."

The Rovian Plot

Through it all, Goodling remained remarkably poised, perhaps surprisingly so in light of press reports that had her bursting into tears with some frequency during her Justice Department days. For hours Wednesday, she sat erect on the edge of her chair, her hands, occasionally trembling, clasped just out of sight below the witness table.

But just because Goodling handled herself well did not mean the U.S. Attorneys mess became any easier to understand as a result of her testimony. Throughout the day, Goodling maintained that she was a small-time player in the firings; she didn't know why, exactly, the U.S. Attorneys were canned. In that respect, her answers resembled those of her old boss, Attorney General Gonzales, who has also testified that he didn't know why, exactly, the U.S. Attorneys were canned.

The dismaying possibility in all this is that both are telling the truth. Democrats, intent on finding an all-encompassing Rovian plot behind the firings, will never accept that possibility that the U.S. Attorney firings were done in a manner that was so slipshod, so halting, and so pointless that nobody quite knew what was going on. But that may be just what happened. Whatever their partisan motivation, Democrats are trying to impose a logical template on events. In the end, they may be doomed to fail.

[katg21]

Talk about beating a dead horse....and ALL for "political gain" like in 2006.........really sad

Posted by perception5 at 02:28 PM : May 24, 2007

Like I even have to say it...I AGREE!!!

[katg21]

Let's move on to more important issues now, this witch hunt is getting old.

[sparks224]

Two things:
1. The Republican Party used caging lists. A Felony.
2. Alberto Gonzalez lied under oath to congress. Also a Felony.

Oh, THAT smoking gun.

I sure glad the NRO isn%u2019t a right wing noise machine, because if they were they%u2019d be trying to mislead everyone.

[terrapin78]

Congress' approval rating will certainly go up once we rid ourselves of more Republicons in the next election. The numbers reflect on the GOP!

[hankbro-2009]

No Smoking Gun from Goodling? Did anyone hear that the Republicans were using Caging Lists to suppress voter turnout?

[notblue]

fascistusa, please explain in detail what freedoms have been removed that have affected you personally in regards to your daily life? I have friends you represent both political sides and we cannot come up with one example where our lives have changed do to these so called loss of rights.

[terrapin78]

From Greg Palast:

This Monica revealed something hotter %u2014 much hotter %u2014 than a stained blue dress. In her opening testimony yesterday before the House Judiciary Committee, Monica Goodling, the blonde-ling underling to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Department of Justice Liaison to the White House, dropped The Big One%u2026.And the Committee members didn%u2019t even know it.


Here%u2019s what you need to know %u2014 and the Committee would have discovered, if only they%u2019d asked:

1. %u2018Caging%u2019 voters is a crime, a go-to-jail felony.

2. Griffin wasn%u2019t %u201Cinvolved%u201D in the caging, Ms. Goodling. Griffin, Rove%u2019s right-hand man (right-hand claw), was directing the illegal purge and challenge campaign. How do I know? It%u2019s in the email I got. Thanks. And it%u2019s posted below.

3. On December 7, 2006, the ragin%u2019, cagin%u2019 Griffin was named, on Rove%u2019s personal demand, US Attorney for Arkansas. Perpetrator became prosecutor.

The committee was perplexed about Monica%u2019s panicked admission and accusations about the caging list because the US press never covered it. That%u2019s because, as Griffin wrote to Goodling in yet another email (dated February 6 of this year, and also posted below), their caging operation only made the news on BBC London: busted open, Griffin *******, by that %u201CBritish reporter,%u201D Greg Palast.

[bluestardad]

HER TESTIMONEY WAS A COACHED ACT BY A BUSH STOOGE! TRYING TO DEFLECT THE WRATH OF AMERICA!

[notblue]

Another waist of time and taxpayers money, another Democratic witch hunt used to deflect the fact the the Dems have not accomplished anything but critisize and investigate the other side of the isle. The Amercian people expected better from the Dmes than just being anti-Republican.

[wogerwabbit]

"the U.S. Attorney firings were done in a manner that was so slipshod, so halting, and so pointless that nobody quite knew what was going on" ... which by itself is reason enough to fire the whole bunch of them. We're paying big bucks to these clueless bozos to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States... not to preserve, protect and defend the Republican party, or Gonzo, or Bush. Apparently, any act of outrageous criminality and/or stupidity is quite all right with Republicans as long as it helps them to remain in power. To me, the Republican party has betrayed the trust we the people have placed in them and sold out our country for political idealology. They're traitors and no better than a bunch of commumists taking over our government... even worse, because they are subverting America from the inside. As a (now ex-) Republican, I'm horrified at the prospects for the future our country if these sorry excuses for Americans are allowed to continue their treasonous destruction of our republic.

[heartlight3]

I don't get it. She must have thought she did something wrong, or she wouldn't have needed to invoke the fifth amendment and refuse to testify unless granted immunity. I don't agree that it was because her testimony would be compared to McNulty's and she would be accused of perjury. If her testimony is what it seems, it's a matter of he said/she said, and he could just as easily have been the perjuror. The only thing I can see that was possibly criminal was the requiring that career appointees be Republican, and given the significance of everything else involved, that seems pretty trivial, although, "I didn't mean to" is a pretty lame defense. She seems to be a pretty typical Bush administration participant. Anything she might have done wrong was really someone else's fault, and it wasn't really her decision. Given the fuss she made, I would have expected her to have more to offer.

Our Democratically-controlled Congress is doing the work of the people and in so doing is exposing the Bush Administration for what it is...a corrupt machine bent on undermining the balance of power which our Constitution is designed to have.

[fascistusa]

Yup. Nothing to see here, Folks.

Just the Fascist takeover of America.

Nazi America. Bush/Cheney style.

But remember... WE'RE FREE!!!!!

[perception5]

The case is a perfect example of the "political lynchings" that our Democrat controlled DO-NOTHING CONGRESS with their 27% approval rating have been conducting since January..........with a LOT of help from their pals and "enablers" in our corrupt liberal MSM wolfpack press.

.........he said .......then I said.....and she said......and then they said.......


Talk about beating a dead horse....and ALL for "political gain" like in 2006.........really sad