i hate to be cynical, but is it really that much of a mystery that a messiah/regent grad would trot right up the ranks of the DOJ? Of course, that is not to say that some political string pulling wasn't involved. It just seems to me to be par for the course in an administration so fond of sponsoring the ideologically right minded and rewarding the piety of its soliders with highly sought-after and elite positions.

Right. I think people are interested in knowing what strings were pulled and who did the pulling.

So basically, Mary Kay makeup is trowled onto her face and there's fruit punch (no booze) in the plastic cup and she likes designer t-shirts that look like Billboards? Is she a Southern gal?

So if I suck a few dicks I can get a good job? Tierist devils.

"...has acquired the tital of "Senior Counsel" to this nation's Attorney General."

Maybe Lat should only reprint comments from people who can spell, or at the very least, place a (sic) after the spelling errors.

Or is Lat re-posting these comments without proofreading them?

Lat, would you have gotten away wit this at WLRK?

Loyola 2L: Only if you're good! Remember - no teeth....

Loyola 2L--
You just proved why you're at Loyola. Women who "embrac[e] an evangelical spirit" do not give BJs (either to their husbands or anyone elses) because Jesus and Pat Robertson don't approve. The rare exception is when male evangelical preachers give BJs to male escorts while high on meth.

2:19, I gotta disagre--the women I knew who embraced an evangelical spirit (this is in high school--I only hang out with godless heathens now) tended to give BJs like crazy, because they didnt think that counted as "real" sex. Only penetration makes baby Jesus cry, dontcha know.

Anyhoo, back to Monica Goodling, there's a great thread about her on TPMuckracker (link in my name).

He just purchased the meth, he didn't use it!

Folks, Regent is an accredited law school, albeit Tier 4.

2:19 Of course they don't *rolls eyes*

Go ahead and rail on me, but this is completely out of line. I knew Monica for a number of years and can say nothing but exemplary things about her abilities as a lawyer and her character as a person. Grow up.

Then why is she taking the 5th? I guess sometimes the truth doesn't set you free. It puts you in jail.

Your guess is as good as mine. But I do know that she wouldn't be doing it if she didn't think it was right. I can't speak highly enough of her.

That picture is just so after-school special. You just know that's how the night started and that it ended with her hair all askew while she told a bunch of random dudes that she loved them.

So she decides what's "right?" Morality is objective not subjective.

2:51 -- That is the dumbest thing I've ever read.

What's dumb about it? Sorry to break it to you hypocritical Pat Robertsonites but you don't get to redefine right and wrong whenever it suits you. Bible thumping trash.

Lat, I don't think your brown-shirted friends in the Federalist Society would appreciate your criticizing one of your Christianist comrades. Stay on message, Lat!

3:12--The reason it is dumb is because the inverse is so obviously true, that is, morality is subjective (not objective). Example: some believe BJs are moral behavior, while others do not (on which side Ms. Goodling falls I will leave to you). But who is correct? Who decides what is "moral"? The answer: reasonable people can disagree (and do, quite vociferously). The fact there is no single arbiter suggests that it is entirely subjective.

Thanks, 3:56

3:56, how convenient. Whatever you do is moral by definition.

3:56,

The fact that some people disagree on what is moral and what is not, does not necessarily mean that morality is subjective. The other possible explanation is that morality is objective, but some people are just mistaken or misguided as to what is right or wrong.

Take robbing a bank, or rape as an example. Some people think that robbing a bank is okay or that rape is fine. These people happen to be wrong. Regardless of their opinions, it's possible to make an objective argument, based on human rights and human dignity that it's wrong to violate someone's privacy by rape, or wrong to unjustly take someone's property by armed robbery.

(Of course, there are some moral questions that are not immediately or clearly obviously right or wrong... like pre-marital sex, or abortion, or whatever. But that doesn't mean that objective arguments about morality can't be made or that morality is all relative.)

What the hell does morality (whatever that means) have to do with any of this? I would read 2:42's comment as saying that Goodling wouldn't be taking the 5th if she didn't believe she was *legally* right to do so. And we all know, or at least I hope we do, that the law is anything but objective.

To return to the BJ discussion... can we try and find some more dirt on her? Something along the lines of how some clown from some clown college & clown law school got so high up the food chain?

Here is something I lifted off TPMuckracker:

Monica's job at DOJ is and always has been purely political. She went to Messiah undergrad and Regent Univ. Law School and the sum total of her actual prosecutorial experience is handling traffic cases as a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in Paul McNulty's district (now the current Deputy A.G.) for about six months. Her political mojo (which is considerable in light of her age and inexperience) is allegedly linked to Karl Rove.

Figures. All roads lead to Rove. To get as far as Goodling has gotten, you need a patron (even if you're an HYS grad). Rove would fit the bill.

The 2008 USN rankings are. Loyola dropped to 66 where they are now tied with Pepperdine. A whopping 40% of their students are unemployed at graduation.

So L2L might want to seriously consider the offer.

how is morality objective and not subjective???

Since when does any AUSA handle "traffic cases"? Maybe they meant drug trafficking? Bit of a difference, there.

40% unemployment at graduation? What a cruel world we live in.

well, federal defenders can handle traffic cases (misdemeanors) that occur on federal property, so it stands to reason that ausa's prosecute at least some of those

MONICA'S GOIN DOWN

I wish I had gone to Regent University. I imagine that Con Law isn't mandatory (or even offered for that matter). Someone call Ambush Makeover, that girl can't testify before Congress looking like that. Strikes me as the type that had to turn her Strawberry Shortcake doll around so it wouldn't see her earn the job at the DOJ.

hey anon 2:33 - since you know her so well, please enlighten us as to how someone with such shitty credentials got such a good post. inquiring minds want to know

Yes 2:33 please tell me I can get such a good post.

4:05

Language, Truth and Logic baby.....

WWJD - would the jesus take the fifth? better ask kyle sampson - he likely has information regarding the jesus' work in america.

4:35... traffic incidents occuring on federal property (i.e. military bases, are often prosecuted by AUSAs).

It's amazing that they think they can legitimize Regent as a law school by invoking Pat Robertson's Yale law degree.

Of course, as any Pat-watcher knows, he managed to knock up his girlfriend and have to marry her in advance of the birth of their first child while at Yale. And this was after his daddy got him special treatment, taking him out of combat in the Korean War, while leaving his buddies to die in droves as young first lieutenants.

But then, the Christian right has always been about hypocrisy first and foremost. Monica is just the latest in a long line in that tradition. I bet they didn't even teach the Fifth Amendment at Regent, so she has no clue about whether she can invoke it or not in her situation.

For those interested, there are more photos of Monica holding the red cup (she was at a picnic) at this website... notice the one of her and another man... Richard Parker (a grad of the Regent U School of Government... he probably beat out various Kennedy School grads for a high ranking job at State). Could this be a love interest?

Here's the site: http://www.regent.edu/alumni/chapters/washington_dc/DCPicnicPhotos.htm

Notice in all three pictures of her and Dick Parker that they are sitting or standing next to one another...

i bet they broke the rules at Regents...

A counsel invoking the fifth in a federal criminal investigation of corporate activity would be cut loose immediately for his or her failing to cooperate. In fact, the AUSA's would demand it.

A counsel invoking the fifth in a federal criminal investigation of corporate activity would be cut loose immediately for his or her failure to cooperate. In fact, the AUSA's would demand it.

Anonymous 9:38: So now the fact that the Rev. Pat Robertson married his pregnant girlfriend (now wife) is supposed to be held AGAINST him? I suppose that the moral thing to do from a liberal's perspective would have been to convince her to get an abortion, of course. Leftists will never fail to disgust me.

12:49, they're not condemning his ACTIONS, they're condemning his HYPOCRISY.

12:53 a.m. What is the argument that Robertson is a hypocrite? He did not claim never to have sinned in his life; no Christian makes this claim.

Even if Robertson was known for having lived an especially promiscuous lifestyle 40 years ago, that would not make him a hypocrite, if he says that he gave up this kind of lifestyle and encourages others to do the same for moral or religious reasons. In this case, this does not even apply, because Robertson was not particularly promiscuous. Since he had premarital sex with only one woman, his wife-to-be, that is about as close as one can get from meeting the Christian ideal of abstinence before marriage.

Robertson would be a hypocrite only if he claimed that he never did anything wrong at all. Robertson also would be a hypocrite if he said, for example, that anyone who ever had premarital sex is unwelcome in his church, even after repenting. Of course, Robertson never said anything approaching either of these claims.

Leftists never fail to disgust you because you're an idiot.

The term "leftist", by the way, contrary to Rush Limbaugh's usage, everywhere in the world except US right wing radio (and even there until about 10 years ago), typically refers to people who believe in far-left socialism or communism. Using that term to refer to a presumed US economic moderate (which, historically and in the world today, is a conservative) who is calling Pat Robertson a "hypocrite" is about as asinine as you can get.

Except for defending Robertson of course.

The reason Robertson is a hypocrite is that he portrays himself as a man of God, and not just any God, but the God of Jesus Christ. Well guess what, you twit. Jesus doesn't stress abortions or heterosexual marriages or any of the "moral values" issues you nutjobs claim are Christian values. Which is not to say that right wing stances on these issues aren't the correct Christian interpretation (although frankly, I have always read the "Jesus goes to the leper colony and heals" story as an essential, namely that he was opening up God not only to the Gentiles, but even to the morally diseased (as the lepers were viewed at the time), but I digress), but to say that if you were truly claiming to represent Jesus Christ, you might want to focus on, say, the poor and the suffering.

Furthermore, if you were, as Pat Robertson, going to support politicians in the name of Christ, you might think that you would support those politicians on the basis of helping said poor and suffering, rather than help elevate issues which are completely irrelevant to the New Testament (and frankly, if you're going to use the Old Testament as a basis for moral values, I say: 1) let's use the Jewish interpretation, since that's been around considerably longer than your nutjob movement's interpretation, which has been around for like 20 years; and 2) why don't you also follow the Levitican scriptures on the ritual sacrifice of goats and cows, no trimming of beards and sideburns, the stoning to death of those who "blaspheme", and the observance of Yom Kippur?)? Robertson has not only ignored those poor and suffering that are the central focus of the New Testament, but he has in fact sold out to an ideology (which he has sold as religion) which by its nature punishes the poor and suffering.

He is a Pharisee and a hypocrite. And you are, again, a complete idiot. (by the way, the same Old Testament passages that prohibit homosexuality and have been interpreted to ban abortion also, with equal force, condemn adultery and divorce. so your defense of Robertson, by your own logic, is "disgusting").

Go read a book not written by a political tool.

When the layer of staff right under the people at the top are woefully underqualified (or, whose principal qualifications seem to be loyalty and not brains), you can be damn sure that the people at the top deliberately put that layer in place to carry out shady deeds and maintain plausible deniability. It happened at Enron; it happened at Refco.

When the layer just below the Ivy-caliber top management are apparently doing shady things and then pleading the fifth, watch out. Predicted next steps: she eventually testifies (with some or full immunity), evinces no guilty mind because that's just "the way things were done" and she sees nothing wrong with it, and the heads at the top (Skilling, Bennett ... Gonzales) will roll.

hey, is it true that inside every lawyer is a cold hard core of rank credentialism and urban snobbery?

10:21 -- it is not "rank credentialism" to suggest that goodling's education is woefully inadequate. her education suggests seven years of indoctrination that the most important thing in the world is doing jesus's work.

seriously, how is a law school whose stated purpose for existence is "to bring glory to God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit" supposed to successfully teach its students that sometimes you have to ignore the "higher law" to obey that lowly, man-made obstruction of justice statute?

(your credentialist critique might carry more weight if instead of messiah and regent, she was a graduate of non-religious bottom-tier institutions...but that's not the case, is it?)

Monica previously worked as a lawyer at the RNC. The White House liaison job at DOJ doesn't even require you to be a lawyer, but the AG gave her a fancy title anyway. She's not very bright.

dopey blonde bim

The E.D. Va., where McNulty is from, has AUSA's prosecuting speeding tickets on the George Washinton Parkway, a major federal road that runs from the Beltway around 25 miles down to Alexandria.

10:44, I almost see your point; you don't object to her bottom-tier law school education so much as you object to a religious law school education; that you are against her by reason of her Jesus-hugging, and that this Christ-freak cannot be expected to obey mortal law by reason of her religious beliefs. I remember the same thing was said about Ashcroft, and before him about how Catholic presidents would take orders from the Pope and when Lieberman was on the ticket, about how Jewish executives wouldn't wage war on the Sabbath or some such. I don't see how being down-with-the-Big-Guy makes you more or less likely to obey obstruction of justice laws, unless your religion actually compels disobedience. What are your feelings on Allah-freaks and their ability to obey Western laws?

I think I meant it's credentialism to object to her bottom-tier school, and it's urban snobbery (think atheist, turtleneck-wearing, NASCAR-hating, NPR listeners) to object to the school's religious emphasis, without any evidence other than (1) the names and mission statements(??) of her schools, and (2) her, purportedly, short employment history in the law, post-grad, to convince you that she is unfit for the job, a job which, if 10:53 is believed, doesn't even require a law degree at all. (Obviously a job not worth having.) How much qualification do you need to essentially relay messages (liaison??) between one office and the next? (Obviously a political plum job, like those USAs.)

Would you have the same...prejudice? objections?...against her if she graduated from a thoroughly Sodomite T14 law school? What about if she was a T14-grad but also an ordained priestess? Is there any evidence of Goodling's religious belief, do her schools require something?

And to answer your question, I have no idea what "to bring glory to God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit" could possibly mean with regard to lawyers' work, except maybe to behave in a professional manner, executing her duties courteously and efficiently, zealously defending her client's interest, and generally bringing credit to her and her kind. But I'm no Christian so I'll have to ask around.

I assume that those of you who have been quick to opine on the inadequacy of an education from Messiah college are not actually interested in learning anything about a Messiah College education. I would simply tell you that those of us who have graduated from Messiah College and then gone to top-tier law schools and law firms have found our education to have been more than adequate. Similarly, your assumption about the ideological bent of Messiah College grads is sadly simplistic. Indeed, the anabaptist tradition, with which Messiah College is affiliated, is a tradition that has produced many peace and justice liberals (people who would and do vehemently disagree with the positions of the Bush administration).

Messiah College has the de facto motto:
The meek shall inherit the earth, but not the mineral rights--those go to Exxon, Shell, Chevron.
Pat Robertson's College taught young Monica well, it taught her the master gig:
By protecting the big PAC PALS, who make USA assets hostage, it provides a PAC kick back pool of money. Now, with Monic's fishy J. D. as a quasi lawyer, she never tired any big cases, never toiled in the legal vineyards...
Her deal--the fix for Rove.
Rove's deal.. create PAC $$$ pools, even if it means tampering with the entire U S. justice system.
In such a postion, Rove needed someone with a academic paper that looked like a J. D. but someone who was an empty shell, so he could run his Rove racket games...
Monica Monica, the blue dress, the red cup, the screwing to America was indeed big time: and now she takes the 5th...
The Bush Administration's very own Monica, and her fixes for Rove.... Pray for America, our entire Nation was screwed, by the Bush fixers.

I have to echo my fellow alumnus, here. I graduated from Messiah, recieved a prestigious scholarship, and am currently at the top graduate programme in the nation for my field. I recieved a fine education at the college, and my professors encouraged me to apply for internships, submit papers to conferences, and apply for top-tier fellowships and graduate schools. It is because of my undergraduate education at Messiah that I am where I am now. In fact, I was recently at a conference where I was speaking to a colleague who had graduated from any Ivy League college. He was bemoaning the fact that his professors had not really helped him make much contact with other people in our field. I don't talk a lot about Messiah, and I didn't mention it by name when I said this, but maybe I should have. I said, I was lucky in that way. From my junior year on, my undergraduate professors were encouraging me to apply for awards and to go to conferences.

On a recent trip back to Messiah, I enjoyed a nice hour or so of communal Bush-bashing with my old profs... so if we are going to be in the business of critiquing the colleges that have produced certain individuals, let's take on Yale for releasing George W. Bush upon the world.

amen

amen