by matttbastrard
Stay classy, Megyn Kelly (and clueless):
KELLY: But, I’ll tell you what I think, so far is the most amazing lawyer story coming out of election ‘08 and that is the Department of Justice, which normally sends not just poll observers, but also criminal prosecutors to certain battleground key polling areas. Just in case there’s nonsense, right?
MILLER: Mmm hmm.
KELLY: Met with this liberal group of activists and two weeks later — and the Department of Justice, you may or may not know, leans left — made a decision after meeting with these liberals not to send those criminal prosecutors now. So, if there’s some sort of criminal behavior at the polls, good luck trying to find a prosecutor to complain to.
MILLER: That is unbelievable.
“Unbelievable”? Indeed. As Think Progress notes:
If there is the “criminal behavior” at the polls that Kelly is so worried about, there will be plenty of resources for voters. Republicans and Democrats are deploying thousands of lawyers across the country to monitor the polls. Both the Justice Department and the Election Protection Coalition have also set up hotlines to help voters.
Plus, Kelly seems to be unfairly dismissing all the hard goddamned work John Ashcroft and Monica Goodling put into making the Justice Department more *ahem* fair and balanced:
A 1995 graduate of Messiah College, an evangelical Christian school, and a 1999 graduate of Pat Robertson’s Regent University Law School, Goodling is an improbable character for a political scandal. Her chief claim to professional fame appears to have been loyalty to the president and to the process of reshaping the Justice Department in his image (and, thus, His image). A former career official there told The Washington Post that Goodling “forced many very talented career people out of main Justice so she could replace them with junior people that were either loyal to the administration or would score her some points.” And as she rose at Justice, a former classmate said, Goodling “developed a very positive reputation for people coming from Christian schools into Washington looking for employment in government, always ready to offer encouragement and be a sounding board.”
[…]
One of Ashcroft’s most profound changes was to the Civil Rights Division, started in 1957 to fight racial discrimination in voting. Under Ashcroft, career lawyers were systematically fired or forced out and replaced by members of conservative or Christian groups or folks with no civil rights experience. In the five years after 2001, the Civil Rights Division brought no voting cases — and only one employment case — on behalf of an African American. Instead, the division took up the “civil rights” abuses of reverse discrimination — claims of voter fraud or discrimination against Christians.
And yet despite all that effort, Kelly still has the nerve to complain that the DoJ “leans left.” Sheesh. Some people are just impossible to please.
bastard.logic 