It is so hard to keep up with all the Republican scandals these days. One almost needs an instant message service just devoted to these scandals. Admittedly, quite a few came to light even before Congress jump-started its dormant oversight functions early this year. Now that the oversight machine has gotten warmed up, expect a new scandal to surface every couple of weeks or so.
One recent junior-level scandal is about to get bigger. Remember Lurita Doan, the Administrator of the General Services Administration (GSA)? She recently gave testimony before the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform investigating GSA misconduct. If you don’t remember, here is an exchange between Ms. Doan and Rep. Bruce Braley (D-IA) over a meeting she attended, on GSA property, in which the White House Office of Political Affairs presented strategies for winning the 2006 elections. The presentation included things like a list of targeted Democratic seats. Multiple witnesses reported that after the presentation, Ms. Doan stood up and said “How can we use the GSA to help the Republicans in the next election.” She, of course, had no recollection of the presentation or her own statements afterward.
The problem for Ms. Doan is that the activity, on the face of it, violates the Hatch Act of 1939. That isn’t just the opinion of a spiteful liberal like me; in fact, it’s the opinion of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (here is a pdf version of their report).
The report has gotten Ms. Doan a second date with the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on June 7.
The Chair of the committee, Rep. Henry Waxman (R-CA), just gave an interview to the Center for American Progress to explain the rationale for asking her back for a second date. In summary:
By pressing forward with the investigation, investigators have revealed a disturbing pattern by Doan to mislead and cover-up her true intent regarding these partisan briefings. Some examples:
- When asked by the OSC investigators about her role in the briefing, she said “she was uninterested in the topic” and “was on her Blackberry…reviewing emails…and only periodically looked up and down.” But a review of her e-mail use during the meeting failed to corroborate that she was checking or sending email via her BlackBerry.
- Doan claimed the GSA employees who spoke out about her were employees who were poor performers. The OSC investigators said that Doan’s claim regarding the witnesses “appears to have been purposefully misleading and false” since none of the seven employees had “between a poor to totally inferior performance.”
- Doan claimed “she does not care about polls or election results.” But investigators report that Doan contributed $226,000 to Republican candidates and Republican organizations. Doan responded by testifying that the contributions had been “taken out of context.”
Here’s the thing. It is possible that this is an isolated case of a senior Bush appointee just not understanding the rules.
It’s possible…but why is it that every time something suspicious is investigated, it turns out that Republican appointees are breaking the law (or at least bending the law to the point of breaking) in order to squeeze out partisan advantage? And they never remember a thing about it afterward!
I’m talking Gonzogate (“I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons”), Monica Goodling (“I crossed the line of Civil Service policy”), Plamegate, the Armstrong Williams & Maggie Gallagher propaganda scandals, a fake reporter in the White House press corps, GAO-gate, and so on and so forth. And we’ve just scratched the surface.
Collectively, it is clear that (1) these people think they are above the law, (2) the GOP comes before country to them, (3) they feel being in power entitles them to use their power to keep power at any cost, (4) this abuse of power is systematic. The Bush administration’s great innovation has been to refine the concept of distributed power abuse it in a way that hasn’t been seen in generations (if ever before). It’s a pernicious, distributed, largely low-level abuse of power at all levels of government. And we have only scratched the surface.
When it comes right down to it, this current pack of criminals in the White House makes Richard Nixon seem like a real amateur.
got it right Darryl – not a can of worms, a worm factory
pure crud for govt. – and what results
America will never recover because all the old timers will be dead too soon
Darryl, it really scares me that Tricky Dick Nixon would be seen as a liberal nowadays.
The scary thing is the fact that these folks apparently believe their behavior is legal, moral, and really ‘nothing to get excited about’.
It’s enough to make one think seriously about returning to the spoils system.
Left Turn – RightEqualStupid – LauraBushKillaGuy – Still Stupid All The Time!
You continue to give idiots a bad name, but that’s becuz you daddy didn’t pack a full load of chromosomes!
Puffybutt – If I was an inbred moron, married to a Muslim woman who pulled trains on my high school football team, and a cowardly terrorist who hated Democrats and democracy like you, I’d try to change the subject of this thread too.
Well Puffybutt – won’t work. Your hero, George Bush is in charge of the most corrupt regime in US history. And if more of your Publican friends continue to get found out, that record may shift to the most corrupt political regime in the world. Gosh you must be proud.
When it comes right down to it, this current pack of criminals in the White House makes Richard Nixon seem like a real amateur.
This pack of criminals got their training in the Nixxon administration.
“bluesky says:
When it comes right down to it, this current pack of criminals in the White House makes Richard Nixon seem like a real amateur.
This pack of criminals got their training in the Nixxon administration.”
Credit where credit is due.
Darryl Says:
When it comes right down to it, this current pack of criminals in the White House makes Richard Nixon seem like a real amateur.
Karl Rove got his start working for CREEP. But he was smart, he learned to erase the tapes and delete the e-mails.
@4 Puddy, you know damn well that what Darryl posted is TRUE. Now try to justify why you support it, you anti-Amrican piece of shit.*
* I’m not joking this time. I sincerely mean it, asswipe.
At the very heart of all this GOP law-breaking, of course, is appointing partisan hacks to federal prosecutor jobs (from U.S. Attorney down to the lowliest staff attorney) to make sure there will be no investigations or prosecutions of the party underlings’ criminal behavior.
Doan is another one of those GOP tit-suckers who made ALL her money off government contracts.
“Doan began work in 1984 teaching as an adjunct professor at several colleges in Louisiana, Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia. From 1986 worked 4 years with Unisys as a technician deploying Unix systems, leading edge technology at the time. Utilizing her newly acquired skills, Doan launched her company, New Technology Management Inc. in 1990. Doan integrated Unix systems working alone until 1993 when she secured a $250,000 Navy contract to install Unix on ships. By 1996, her company had over 40 employees. In 2005, Doan sold her firm for an undisclosed sum to a group of investors and retired.[5] NTMI is responsible for approximately 80% of the security and surveillance technology protecting the U.S. borders with Canada and Mexico.”
It’s not hard to figure out how her company bot those government contracts, either:
“Doan is a long-time supporter of the Republican Party. She was cited by Vice President Dick Cheney in his speech at the Small Business Administration in 2003. She has also met with President George W. Bush as a woman small business owner in 2004. And in 2004, she was one of the speakers at the Republican National Convention. … Between 1999 and 2006, she and her husband, Douglas, a former military intelligence officer and business liaison official at the Department of Homeland Security, donated nearly $226,000 to Republican campaigns and causes, documents show.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lurita_Doan
Darryl,
Yes. That is because they’ve had 34 years (since the summer of 1973) to work on their playbook. That summer, Rove met Bush Jr.; Bush Sr. took over the party leadership after the Watergate scandal; the Republican “Dirty Tricks” was in its infancy. The eager young Republicans of 1973 have been honing their criminal skills ever since.
Heath
PudWax is a sockpuppet and GBS is his “liberal” sockpuppet that he uses to prove he is a curiously pale black Republican.
Is this a good solution to Republican election fraud?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colfax_massacre
Others have already commented on the training and practice in malfeasance obtained from RMN and his activities by the chief perps in today’s White House. I might point out another perhaps-surprising difference between then and now: Richard Milhous Nixon had a soul.
What a shock to say something so positive about RMN. Who knew?
Then again, in comparison to the Cheneys and DeLays and Gonzaleses of the world (and their Regent-trained proteges), this is very faint — damnably faint — praise.
While I’m here, let me also address Richard Pope’s astonishingly distasteful link with a resounding NO. And also to suggest a quick dose of whatever meds it takes to short-circuit his manic phase.
N, I think you missed the Popester’s point there. He was attempting to be humorous. I thought it was funny myself. That link was perhaps a little distasteful, but your overreaction ain’t much better.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18924679/
BREAKING – Right Wing traitors outed a COVERT agent. Plame was indeed COVERT at the time the Bush regime outed her for political gain. Let’s see all you terrorist-loving right wing traitors line up to take your medicine.
Not just RMN but every federal rethug admin since has had the same system, the same agenda, the same plan: The destruction of the constitution to make the world safe for corporations. Everything else serves that goal directly or as misdirection.
Cauterization by impeachment of the people AND the ideas is the only cure.
–ml
Isn’t it even more outrageous that Scott Jennings gave the presentation that he did to the GSA administrative luncheon? Wasn’t Jennings putting pressure on Lurita Doan and everyone else to perform in a way to help partisan elections?
Can’t say anything about whether Jennings was pressuring Doan or coordinating with her, but I think the reason she’s on the fire instead of him is that he’s a White House staffer. Whether one or not believes all this “unitary executive” bullshit, it’s still the case that getting at anyone inside the WH is more problematic than going for those working in other executive branch agencies.
How else to explain the absence of an orange jumpsuit in Karl Rove’s wardrobe?
Even if Doan rolls over on Jennings, it may not be easy to indict him on this crystal-clear violation of the Hatch Act. And even if, somehow, he ends up being charged, he’ll probably fall on his sword to protect the apparently-bulletproof master-fiend, Mr. Turd Blossom.
Ooouuuuuuuuu Pelletman@9: Big words from a FASCIST NAZI traitor such as yourself!
Goodness Headlice Loocie AKA Col Biff AKA Col Tucker AKA Harry Poon AKA Emily Littela:
How many nicks do you need?
GBS is my liberal sock Puppet? Waaa haaa haaa haaa haaa haaa. Do you know GBS headlice? He could dismember you in 5 seconds! Better not cross him!
Pope @ 14: So you have to go back to the 1870s to find good Republicans?