Meet Monica "Buzz Saw" Goodling (TPM Muckraker)

[marmar]

Meet Monica "Buzz Saw" Goodling
By Paul Kiel - April 1, 2007, 12:04 PM

There has been an assumption that Monica Goodling, the Justice Department's liaison to the White House, is pleading the Fifth simply because of her role in preparing false testimony to Congress. That is, at least, the impression given by her lawyer's letter to the investigating committees.

But this profile in Legal Times shows that Goodling is far from just a mid-level aide who played a peripheral role in the purge. On the contrary, she's very well-connected and apparently one of the main drivers behind the process of selecting U.S. attorneys.

Just look at how Legal Times describes Goodling's role in the interviews to select U.S.A. replacements:

Interviews for U.S. Attorney replacements took place with only a handful of people: David Margolis, the department's top-ranking career official and a 40-plus year veteran; a member of the White House Counsel's Office; the head of the Executive Office of U.S. Attorneys; and Goodling.
Charles Miller, whom Gonzales appointed as interim U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, interviewed with the panel in the fall of 2005. "They asked me what I'd done to support the president," Miller says. It wasn't a question Miller expected. He told them he'd voted for Bush.

But a former prosecutor who did not get a U.S. Attorney post was left with a sour feeling after his interview in 2006. "Monica was in charge, in essence, of the interview," recalls the former supervisory assistant U.S. Attorney. "I walked out of that room and thought, 'Wow, I've just run into a buzz saw.'"

It can't be surprising, then, that Goodling got her start in national politics in 1999 by working in the Republican National Committee's war room for political opposition research. There, she was working directly underneath Tim Griffin, then the deputy research director of the RNC who bragged that his shop made the bullets in the war against Democrats -- and later the administration's pick to be the U.S. attorney for eastern Arkansas. Goodling, of course, played a key role in helping install her old boss in the spot last year. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/

[Gman]

1. I knew there had to be a whole lot more than just being afraid

she was being hung out to dry.

[Aviation Pro]

2. Cowards usually talk big in the locker room....

...but when it comes time to lace them up on the field they're the ones who are cowering in the corner.

[TomInTib]

3. This evil has completely metastasized.

Like a cancer, it is everywhere.

rec'd

[Joanie Baloney]

4. I bet Aaron Sorkin is jealous

If he portrayed Monica Goodling on TV exactly as she is, it would be derided as over the top. This woman is a stereotype if ever there was one. Read the whole article....she's incredible!

Let's see....who should play Ms. Goodling in the film version? Reese Witherspoon? Drew Barrymore? None of them seem capable of the poisonous warped loyalty that apparently drives this woman to subvert the very legal system she swore to uphold.


:popcorn:

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Ann Coulter?

[Benhurst]

7. Katie Couric? Her new career as an "actress" would provide cover

for her leaving her job as the CBS News "anchor."

[Rydz777]

5. New SOP

a new SOP by the Bush administration. Everyone called before a Democratic Congressional Committee will take the Fifth - on the grounds that it is a perjury trap.

[L. Coyote]

8. kick w/ x-post: Email-Gate FACTS: Felons, georgewbush.com, gwb43.com , et. al.

Here is a rather complete context = recent discussions:

Email-Gate FACTS: Felons, georgewbush.com, gwb43.com , et. al.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x523978