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Interviewing 101: The Bush Administration Way
If you're bidding for a spot at the Bush Justice Department, you better come ready to field a barrage of questions. And not the variety you might expect. If you're not prepared, you might just leave feeling like you ran into a buzz saw.
Jack Goldsmith, in his new book The Terror Presidency, provides a first hand account of his interview at the White House to be the chief of the Department's Office of Legal Counsel in 2003. The OLC position is among the most important at the Department, since its legal opinions bear directly on government policy. As Goldsmith explains, the OLC has the power to essentially offer "advance pardons" for dubious administration conduct.
So Goldsmith expected to spend the interview talking about his views on the law and the Constitution. Instead, he writes, this is how it began:
Sitting in chairs around [Deputy White House Counsel David] Leitch's desk as I entered the room were [then-White House Counsel Alberto] Gonzales and [Dick Cheney's counsel] David Addington. I had met both men briefly before, but I had never had an extended conversation with either. I shook everyone's hand and was settling in on the couch at the opposite end of the room when Leitch kicked off the interview."Who's Henry Perritt?" he asked in a slightly accusatory tone.
He continues:
I had no idea why he was asking me this. "He's the dean of Chicago-Kent law school," I replied. "And a well-known Internet scholar.""Why did you give eight hundred dollars to his campaign?" Leitch followed up.
My heart sank. One of Leitch's jobs as Deputy White House Counsel was to vet candidates for political appointments. A few years earlier I had given my first, and at that point my only, campaign contribution to Perritt, who at the time was running for a seat in the House of Representatives from the Tenth District of Illinois. Perritt was not a Republican. He was a Democrat. A very liberal Democrat. I explained that Perritt was a friend, and that he had personally asked me to contribute to his campaign.
"Why have you never given money to a Republican?" Leitch continued. "Are you a Republican?"
After Goldsmith assured Leitch that he was in fact a Republican despite never having contributed to Republicans, the interview went on to more expected topics. Not surprisingly, the interview managed not to touch on his disagreements with aspects of the administration's interrogation policy. If they'd asked, presumably Goldsmith's gripes would have been laid bare, sparing the administration plenty of trouble. But they didn't, although they became suitably convinced of Goldsmith's partisan loyalty.
Comments (15)
bobh wrote on September 5, 2007 3:06 PM:Where is Leitch's indictment?
electricphoto wrote on September 5, 2007 3:13 PM:A great example of the "political cleansing" of the Bush government - where only those "of pure partisan thought" who are ready to do their duty to "the party" can be trusted.
This is how you systematically break the law, you screen employees for "loyal Bushies" who suck down the party propaganda and violate the law without so much as a second thought.
Lie under oath to congress - just say "I miss spoke"... need another focus group tested excuse, just see your party leader.
For a party who spent the cold war always saying the Democrats were never tough enough on Communism - they sure have adopted its party model of top down authority, loyalty and propaganda techniques.
Mark Richards wrote on September 5, 2007 3:13 PM:I think, despite the immorality of such scrutiny, that there's a clear benefit: the nation will know exactly where all the zealots are. This will make the next maladministration's job much easier: fire or jail everyone you can... read the riot act to the remaining... and start over.
paul wrote on September 5, 2007 3:20 PM:Where is Goldsmith's? Instead of walking out of the interview he apparently colluded in the administration's corruption. All of these guys trying to get credit for having some infinitesimal shred of principal stand out only against the abyss that is the rest of this administration. Compared to an actual honest person they fail miserably.
M M wrote on September 5, 2007 3:50 PM:why is any administration allowed to pick people for a position in the OLC which gives de facto "get out of jail cards" with their rulings? shouldn't that be a much more independent agency?
kilo wrote on September 5, 2007 3:59 PM:paul - no one is calling Goldsmith a hero. Infact, he's another lapdog motherfucker, BUT he is sharing crucial information with the public. Anyhow, even if he did "take a stand" (whatever that means) he would be replaced quickly and without any questions. Anyway what could anybody do? Tell them "fuck you" and walk out of the white house to a ballad of The Final Countdown?
thomas wrote on September 5, 2007 4:03 PM:electricphoto @ 3:13
PC in TO wrote on September 5, 2007 4:55 PM:and central planning
Kilo,
You stated, "Anyhow, even if he did "take a stand" (whatever that means) he would be replaced quickly and without any questions."
Isn't that exactly what happened? I'm glad that he is sharing information. All these former administration staffers that have been let go after dissenting with the party line portray a fascinatingly consistent picture.
Anonymous wrote on September 5, 2007 5:08 PM:Just another rat trying to distance itself from the neo-conservative wet dream that is the Bush Titanic.
drational wrote on September 5, 2007 5:09 PM:How did you get a copy of the damn book?
Fedup wrote on September 5, 2007 5:10 PM:I have one problem with the "advance pardon" concept in this story. OLC Lawyers can spout all the theories they want. If, in fact, the law has been broken, they are guilty. Congress makes the laws, Executive enforces the laws and JUSTICE interprets the laws. Just because Bush's lawyers say it's legal does not MAKE it legal. Maybe this is the neocons vision of how things will work after they have eliminated the other branches. Just make up a good sounding argument and call it legal.
V. Populi wrote on September 5, 2007 7:13 PM:Bush & Cheney can take their lawyers to prison with them.
less than two weeks till AG leaves the DOJ...can't hardly wait..
LiberalTarian wrote on September 5, 2007 7:24 PM:Actually, he's a damn fine fucking American. He WAS, if you recall, the man who made the Whitehouse rescind the worst of its OLC letters. You think you could have done that in his position?
I don't buy the Republican brand, but try to keep an eye on what is important--the people who did buck the administration, a la Patrick Fitzgerald, don't generally vote the way I would like them to. But, I thank goodness for them all the same. Balance is the key here--all liberal all the time has its weaknesses as well. Good law happens when the two ends of the spectrum work together.
Let's hope more of these stories make their way into the press and into our homes. These people (Bush Cheney et al.) didn't just screw over liberals--they screwed over everybody.
The Oracle wrote on September 6, 2007 1:35 AM:Besides the political litmus test, culture of corruption Republicans in the Bush administration also applied a religious litmus test.
Any religious litmus test used in hiring any federal employee, whether a political appointee or career hire, is expressly forbidden in the "originalist" body of the United States Constitution!!!!!!
This prohibition against any religious litmus test being used is at the foundation of the wall separating church and state...which is why the worst, most corrupt and most evil administration in American history blew off our Constitution's outright prohibition of using religion, any religion, as the basis for public service.
Let's be clear. For the past thirty years, Republicans (and even some orthodox conservative Democrats) have had one all-consuming, overriding goal...to overturn Roe vs. Wade, and make abortion illegal again.
I was a teenager in the 1960s, pre-Roe vs. Wade who knew teenage girls who were afraid they'd gotten pregnant or actually were pregnant, teenage girls who considered all manner of ways to end their pregnancy. They were terrified and willing to try anything. A couple even contemplated suicide as a way to end their "predicament."
Republicans (and some orthodox Democratic collaborators) want our nation to return to this pre-Roe vs. Wade period of time, want the women of our nation to be subject to and enslaved by their unprovable ideological whims.
One just has to wonder how deep into the bowels of hell Republicans are willing to go in their power-mad quest for absolute power and the forcing of their unprovable religious dogma down the throats of everyone else?
Dan Kurtz wrote on September 6, 2007 10:50 AM:Goldsmith should be disbarred. He knew that the administration was violating the Hatch Act when it was asking him questions about donations and whether or not he was a Republican. As an officer of the court, he was obliged to act and he did nothing.
Which brings us to his "conversations" with Addington and Goldsmith's convenient amnesia which seemed to abate coincidently with the release of his book.
The book itself is interesting because it reveals more about illegal government activity than Valery Plame's book, but she is having trouble getting her book published.