More Turmoil Caused by a Bushie in the Justice Department

During the last two days the media has been reporting on the U.S. Attorney in Minnesota who replaced an U.S. Attorney who resigned last year. Her name is Rachel K. Paulose and she is a former senior aide to Paul J. MacNulty, the deputy U.S. Attorney General. The reason why the media has been reporting on her is that Thursday three of the managing attorneys in her office resigned their management positions and went back to being staff attorneys. According to reports in the Minneapolis media, this was a protest against her "ideologically driven and dictatorial managerial style."

Readers of this blog may remember that we contrasted her experience and age at becoming a U. S. Attorney with that of Greg White, the former Lorain County Prosecutor who is the present U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio. Needless to say, there is really no comparison between the two since Mr. White had over 20 years of experience in running a prosecutor's office before becoming U.S. Attorney. Why would the Bush Administration give such an important job to a relatively inexperienced attorney?

The answer, of course, is politics. In politics it is common to reward those who have been loyal to you. So, on one hand, giving Ms. Paulose her present position can be seen as political business as usual. There may be more sinister motives at work, however. In the Times article quoted above appears this passage: She is also one of several conservative lawyers who worked at Justice Department headquarters or the White House who have been named to top jobs in United States attorneys offices on an interim basis. Others are J. Timothy Griffin in Arkansas, Bradley J. Schlozman in Missouri, R. Alexander Acosta in Miami and Matthew M. Dummermuth in Iowa.

Every one of those states is a "swing state" in the 2008 presidential election, including Arkansas, which, although it went for Bush twice, was carried by Clinton twice in the 1990s. Having conservative partisans in U.S. Attorneys' offices could be helpful in pressuring voting rights groups carrying out registration drives among poor people and minorities. (You can read the whole Times article here. )