The War Room recently highlighted the work of The Boston Globe's Charlie Savage, who is
back with a new investigative report, this one exposing the way that the Bush administration has quietly gone about transforming the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division into a force for conservative legal views.
The War Room points out also that
The last we heard from the Savage, he was shining a light on the way in which George W. Bush uses signing statements as a sort of veto lite for legislation he doesn't like but lacks the political will to veto.
Sen. Arlen Specter may be preparing to sue the president over his signing statement.
The War Room notes, relating to Savage's examination of the Justice Department, that the Bush
administration has stuffed "the permanent ranks with lawyers who have strong conservative credentials but little experience in civil rights." The numbers are striking. In the two years before Ashcroft changed the hiring procedures, 77 percent of the lawyers who got jobs in the Civil Rights Division had civil rights experience, Savage found. In the three years after, only 42 percent of them did -- and more than half of those "gained their experience either by defending employers against discrimination lawsuits or by fighting against race-conscious policies," Savage found.
So what kind of experience did the new breed of lawyers bring? Of 45 lawyers hired since 2003, 11 lawyers were members of the Federalist Society; seven were members of the Republican National Lawyers Association; six claimed membership in conservative Christian groups; and several more worked previously for conservatives like Ken Starr, Ed Meese and Trent Lott, Savage found.
What does it all mean? That's not so surprising, either. "The division is bringing fewer voting rights and employment cases involving systematic discrimination against African-Americans," Savage said, "and more alleging reverse discrimination against whites and religious discrimination against Christians."
The republic's unraveling continues.
It is being systematically deconstructed from within and attacked by conservatives and the Christian Right from without, too. The rightwing is a menace to true freedom and greater democracy: From redistricting in Texas to voter suppression in Ohio (more here) and Florida, from the rise of an imperial presidency, which Christians Conservatives myopically adore--blithely unaware of the fact that it could someday be used against them by a president that isn't one of their own--to the codification of discrimination and support for bigoted attitudes against African-Americans, immigrants, gay Americans, women, so-called "secularists," couples of the same or different sex living together, non-Christians, and even Democrats--who the rightwing label as being "traitors" for wanting to protect the Constitution, free speech, civil rights, basic social programs, and public debate about issues of the day.
