One the one hand: Firing US attorneys because they won’t bring politically motivated prosecutions. On the other: inviting Donna Brazile to speak at a “Women’s History Month” event.
Pretty much the same thing, right?
That’s what voter suppression guru and TPMmuckraker favorite Hans Von Spakovsky is arguing. In a post on the National Review, Von Spakovsky notes that the Justice Department has invited all employees to attend an upcoming speech by Brazile, the noted Democratic party strategist.
Writes Von Spakovsky:
The flyer doesn’t say how many taxpayer dollars are going to pay a Democratic political consultant to speak to career employees at the Justice Department (sounds like a good FOIA request). Good thing the Department is no longer politicized.
In a response to the Wall Street Journal, which picked up the story, Brazile said:
During my remarks, I will pay tribute to women who dare, women of courage and the many milestones we have achieved and the path ahead,” Brazile said in an e-mail. “I am going in my capacity as an Adjunct Professor in the Women and Gender Studies at Georgetown University — not as a CNN contributor, ABC news consultant or Vice Chair of the DNC [Democratic National Committee]. Perhaps, I am going as a woman of valor — a woman of courage to pay tribute to women who work at the DOJ and elsewhere.
To be clear, inviting a partisan political operative to speak to SOJ employees, especially at a time when the department is trying to shake off the taint of politicization from the Bush years, could be seen as unwise.
But to imply, as Von Spakovsky seems to do, that the two cases are in any way comparable is, frankly delusional. Though maybe no more delusional than obsessing about non-existent voter fraud.