Letters to the Editor
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They should study more
The Federalist society loves McCarthy, so why would they decry "McCarthyist" tactics being used against her? Oh, that's right, the motto of conservatives is "Do as I say, not as I do". How silly of me.
Of course, there is no "McCarthyist" activity, just another incompetant Republican showing how they're unfit to govern at any level, in any capacity, for any position.
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She's been. . .
kicked upstairs.
This administration's little reward for being so loyal. Competent, not so much. But hey, loyalty is everything, right?
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I never realized....
that Minnesota had a problem with human trafficing.
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It's not McCarthy, it's Dilbert
From all the reports I read, she was just a shitty manager.
This happens a lot with young political appointees with their first managerial post. She thought she knew what she was doing (because she was smart and she graduated from Yale) but she never managed a staff before.
She got off on the wrong foot with the senior civil servants in her office, probably just by acting like a D.C. political appointee (there's a huge difference between what is tolerated inside and outside the beltway).
Her defenders say "older lawyers had difficultly dealing with a young, aggressive woman who had tried to put into place policies important to Mr. Gonzales" and her detractors say "her management style, which has been described as dictatorial and at times vindictive". I think we can infer that the reality was she doesn't know how to work with people and she chooses to blames them.
I've seen this happen a lot in the federal government: people are routinely selected for management positions that completely lack the talent for it. She just happened to (a) catch fallout from the Gonzales Firing Flap and (b) counter public criticism with public indignation. It's a pity that someone so talented would choose hubris rather than humility.
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Huh? "The Federalist Society loves McCarthy"? Does the ACLU love Julius Rosenberg?
Like, where did that come from?
Salon readers can't get away with smearing the Federalist Society, which was originally a law student organization, and now is composed of law students, law school faculty, a variety of other legal scholars, judges and practicing attorneys. The Federalist Society is routinely honored to have Justices of the Supreme Court, the Circuit Courts of Appeal, Solicitors General and leading Justice Department leaders to speak and lead discussions.
Is that someone's idea of a fringe organization?
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Ditto all of the above
Plus, of course, the small problem that, when these ideologically pure, loyalty oath sworn types have the more experienced, local people try to explain to them that Minnesota doesn't have a large human trafficking problem, rather than hold a rational discussion examining the facts and statistics involved, they decide that those who are trying to point out the facts to them are just attacking THEM, and pursuing "McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society; a person of faith; and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color) is truly a disservice to our country."
Any disagreement with these ideological types, no matter how logically, factually based is seen as a personal attack. You're either for them (which means you agree with them completely and agree to do things their way even if there's no evidence to support what they want to do) or against them. They don't have ideas, they have ideologies which are so woven into the way they see themselves and the world, that any disagreement feels to them like a personal attack.
So, as a resident of Minnesota, I can only say, farewell, Ms. Paulose. After your departure maybe the local federal prosecutor's office can actually go back to discovering what needs to be one and doing it, rather than ignoring what needs to be done in order to pursue your ideologically-based crusades.
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Federalist Society
Ya, the Federalist Society is just one big happy group of aw shucks law students getting together. It has absolutely nothing to do with a concerted top-down organization dedicated to indoctrinating law students and deliberately moving the federal bench into radically conservative hands:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2000/0003.landay.html
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uh yeah
and remind us *which* supreme court justices attend federalist society gatherings...um, Scalia...Thomas...
not ready to put them on the fringe yet?
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Ah, the timorous tea-clatch Federalist Society --
The Federalist Society is actually the opposite of its name: anti-Federalist. For those not knowledgable of the legal history preceeding and eventuating in the US Constitution, the anti-Federalists were opposed to its ratification for various paranoid reasons, one being antipathy to a strong central, Federal gov't. They were the equivalent of today's "states' rights" advocates--leaders in which ideological camp are such as the KKK and the Neo-Confederates, which latter have continued to fight the Civil War, and want to reestablish the Confederacy. Many such individuals and their shadow groups want not only to repeal all amendmets to the Constitution back to the first ten, but also to eliminate the Constitution and return to the Articles of Confederation--which were replaced because they failed.
So, the Federalist Society is just another one of those run-of-the-mill "mainstream" collections of extreme right-wing crackpot ideologues. Among those are Ted Olson, who handled Bush's bogus 2000 election case before the Supreme Court--by ignoring the stipulation in the Constitution that such election issues are the exclusive province of CONGRESS. And the happy-go-lucky Robert Bork, who for a time campaigned for an amendment to the Constitution which would allow Congress to overturn the Supreme Court--a power it has always had, already, as a co-equal check against the other two branches.
Another member is the staunch "states rights" advocate/Supreme Court resident rant Scalia--who put aside his staunch "states rights" position in order to stop the uncompleted vote-counting in FL in 2000--unprecedented in history--and accept Bush's bogus case for hearing by the Court, and thereby unconstitutionally usurping the exclusive authority of CONGRESS to address and resolve the issue.
And another is affirmative action beneficiary Clarence Thomas, who opposes affirmative action now that he doesn't need it. Thomas is the first Supreme Court justice to interpret the Constitution through the views of the anti-Federalists--the views, that is, of those who opposed ratification of the Constituton, and who, in addition, held the LOSING argument. The tradition in law as practiced by the Judiciary--and in democarcy more generally--is that the LOSING argument is NOT the law.
Last but not least, the Federalist Society's main declared goal is to "repeal the New Deal"--Federal protections of We the people, in particular minorities and regular folks, from abuses and oppressions by their state gov'ts, and the wealthy and powerful who hav traditionally bought them, and bent them to their whim and will.
Yeah, just another non-controversial, happy-go-lucky, run-of-the-mill "mainstream" organization--"mainstream" according to those who don't know the difference between moderate--mainstream--and the extreme right-wing collection of anti-American bigots and fanatics traditionally termed "lunatic fringe" who put aside their sheets and hoods, donned suits and ties, and wnet to law school in order to try a new approach to reimposing their minority view onto the majority.