According to breaking news at the New York Times, the Justice Department's own investigators have found that a policy of giving political aides final say on hires has led to candidates being dismissed based on Google searches and Myspace pages, Bush cartoons and mild political criticisms. They have found that this constitutes misconduct and a breach of ethics. While the worst cases were committed under Alberto Gonzalez in 2006-2007, it was John Ashcroft who initiated the policy in 2002.
It is important to bear in mind that these were non-political positions, and that this practice, combined with the firings of U.S. attorneys, reflects the old American institution of "patronage" in which a party would clear out all government positions and hire its own people for everything - a practice was closely linked with vote-selling that undermined the entire democratic process.
Now we are left wondering: what other departments with less extensive legal knowledge have undergone similar purges? To what degree have people at the EPA, or in charge of nuclear safety, or in transport or homeland security been chosen based not on their skills but on their ability to rubber-stamp a Republican agenda contrary to their official responsibilities?
McCain deserves credit for being one of the first Republicans to turn on Gonzalez, but could he control the tendency of his party to initiate such unethical practices even if he truly wanted to?
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