According to this NYT article about politicized hiring at the Justice Department (politicized hiring? in Washington? Who woulda imagined!). . .

Another applicant, a student at the top of his class at Harvard who was fluent in Arabic, was relegated to the “questionable” pile because he was a member of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a group that advocates civil liberties.

Ya gotta love ‘em.

Calling CAIR a civil-liberties group is something like calling the White People’s Party “a group that advocates protection of endangered species” (the WPP argues white people should receive protection under the Endangered Species Act). Technically true, perhaps—but less than half the truth, and the least important part of the whole truth.

A little background on CAIR here.

Ed,

I got as far as “From Media Matters...”

I don’t see any point in going further since that organization is the comtemporary left wing equivilant to Der Sturmer.

Please, tell me what Kieth Obermann thinks.

Roger,

From Mediamatters.org:

A March 13 McClatchy Newspapers article titled “Current situation is distinct from Clinton firings of U.S. attorneys” noted that “[m]ass firings of U.S. attorneys are fairly common when a new president takes office, but not in a second-term administration.” The article added that “Justice Department officials acknowledged it would be unusual for the president to oust his own appointees.” In addition, on the March 13 edition of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, former GOP presidential candidate and MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan said that “it is not unusual for all U.S. attorneys—or almost all except some outstanding ones, to be replaced when a new party comes into power, say, in 1993 or 2001.” Similarly, in a Washington Post online chat on March 14—noted by the weblog Talking Points Memo and Media Matters for America—Stuart M. Gerson, assistant attorney general in the administration of President George H.W. Bush, observed, “It is customary for a President to replace U.S. attorneys at the beginning of a term.” Gerson added that “Ronald Reagan replaced every sitting U.S. attorney when he appointed his first Attorney General.”

Now, this “scandal” could be overblown, right enough, but it’s funny (in a bad way). The reason they investigate it to death is that the attorneys are appointed but the attorneys are doing government business, not political business, and if they allow their politics to interfere with their work, that’s extremely bad.

A U.S. Attorney could not investigate a certain connected Republican politician if he or his boss lets politics dictate, or that same Attorney could overzealously prosecute all the Democrats that “need” to be smeared.

The reverse, if you switch parties, possible too.

The special prosecutors, like the one appointed to “investigate” Clinton to death, and spend millions in fishing expeditions on his sex life, are a good example of federal attorney power becoming abusive and political.

Keep in mind the only reason Bush was not raked over those very same coals was that he did not have extra hubris to agree to let it happen. Clinton made the mistake of thinking he was bulletproof, as did Nixon far earlier.

A larger example is what’s happening in
Zimbabwe right now. Mugabe has the law on his side but is using it to abuse the opposition. Why the queen didn’t strip his medal earlier than this I don’t know, cause he was pretty nasty long before this election. What happened to white Zimbabwean farmers is appalling.

That isn’t the end of it. Firing attorneys mid-term is a convenient way of clearing the decks for younger attorneys that have been groomed for high office and are now ready for the big leagues. (maybe even SCOTUS some day)

Plus, mid-term, you get to check up on how they “performed” politically. Does not look good. Could be very bad in fact.

The whole idea these people are appointed, just as those special prosecutors were “appointed”, is why the process itself is suspect just as Atty Gen. Gonzales and G. Bush suspect. What they did find from countless hearings and now this investigation “I don’t recall that...”, are positively damning.

By the way Roger, you could not possibly be more ignorant than already proven on a few occasions, so don’t worry about it. You have already “max’d out”.

Here’s a petty good article on the NYT’s willingness to be a lap dog toady for degenerate ideologies thruought the 20th century and into the 21st.

Be forwarned, there are no references to Rovian Neo-con conspiracies, just researched and educated opinion. If you want to remain ignorant then I’m sure there’s something on Comedy Central or the Cartoon Network that will fill your needs.

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-times-it-ain’t-a-changin’/

Ed, US attorneys are hired and fired at the whim of the Pres. They are political appointees, which would explain why Clinton fired ALL of Bush 1’s appointees. If you can’t grasp that concept then you are even more ignorant than I assumed.

Larry,

CAIR has a very small membership but, a very fat purse that is kept full by regular infusions from Saudi Arabia and other muslim gov’ts. They are well known in the muslim community (yes, I know some too)as are the Muslim American Society, the Muslim Student Association, the Islamic Society of North America and the umbrella group over all of them, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is a fundamentalist group based in Egypt.

When I say “well known” I don’t imply active support.

This imformation is readily available for anyone not wedded to the practice of ignorance based opinionizing to fit a predetermined ideological view.

These groups have learned to exploit the silliness of America’s diversity obsessed media class, educational system and leftist cultural institutions by adopting an ACLU style approach of legal intimidation and disimformation. Like the Southern Poverty Law Center (and all liberals), they tend to accuse anyone who they disagree with of being racist or Islamophobic. There’s rarely any validity to their claim but, they’ve learned by watching leftists that the best way to defeat your rival is not thru debate but thru intimidation and censorship.

Like minded groups are behind the ongoing monkey court trails of journalists in Canada who had the audacity to quote bile spewing imams in their columns and magazines and therefore creating an “islamophobic” atmoshere. They are also trying to have the UN ban any action that court be considered offensive to Islam.

They are heavily supported by the left, who see them as a weapon with which they can silence moderate and conservative critics.

Now, now… next thing you know we might start reading American opinions in foreign newspapers…

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/06/2008624202053652281.html

I have Muslim friends, one of them a close friend, but I’ve never heard of CAIR. (I don’t think she has either...). So I have to reserve judgment on them. But the association question—hate or interest group—brings to mind something else:

I see that the SPLC has now classified the Council of Conservative Citizens as a “hate group”. Knowing what I know of the CCC, that’s a bit of a stretch! That used to be just a group of stuffy old men (mostly judges). I mean, not unless all of a sudden they’ve been recruiting crazy & violent teenagers or something. But my guess is that EVERYBODY is considered a hate group now.

The scandal relates back to the 2006 firing of attorneys because of leftist credentials.

This is well documented. This latest finding (any time something like this happens they do reports and investigations for years afterwards) is just more of the same.

Where Bart possibly strays is in finding it “normal” that politics should trump competency, particularly for career lawyers, where it is illegal.  Funny how when you get dysfunction in a setting people end up seeing dysfunction as “normal”.

Or in cherrypicking the findings to pick on the one Islamic link ? Well, maybe.

I suppose it is legitimate to take the NYT to task for insinuating that CAIR is just a “civil liberties” organization, but it might not be legitimate at all to suggest that political hiring of career attorneys is normal or allowable.

That is what all these investigations and commissions say, but then who ever really listens to what these people say ? They can say and do anything outrageous in Washington they want to because none of us ever pay attention.

That may include the NYT as well, which should not get a free pass to say something outrageous and unsupportable.

If the gummit is unable to validate the political leanings of your Oriental store friend, that could be a problem. If the gummit plays politics and screens out all anti-Bush leftists, because they “don’t think right” or they aren’t “religious enough” or “patriotic enough” that is stinky instead.

If the subject is terrorism, the stakes are higher.  These linguists are needed presumably for sensitive work.

In a somewhat-related matter, shortly after 9/11, the Gummint put out an urgent call for people who were fluent in Arabic, and Pushtu, and other languages common to Iraq and Afghanistan.

I have a friend who operated an Oriental-rug store, and who had served as head of the association of such, and who frequently traveled to the area on buying trips and to manage the factory which she started there.  She volunteered to help, as did many other members of the trade association.

The Gummint basically told them to fuc-- sorry, “to go away”.  Since they frequently traveled to the area, they couldn’t get security clearances.  “Catch 22” in action once again!

Wanna guess which candidate CAIR has endorsed???

And actually, I seem to remember an article a year or 2 back by Rex Bowden in which he described CAIR the same way...as a civil rights group.

Of course, a lot of digging into their background has been done since. Sadly, most of it had to be done by done by bloggers intent on exposing these frauds because the “serious” media were too busy propping CAIR up to embellish their diversity ranking.

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