Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Federalist Society star David Sentelle piles on....

Adopting the Mukasey School of Law jurisprudence I noted in the post below, David Sentelle, proud Federalist Society luminary, continues the assault on the rule of law:
Government employees who engage in questionable acts, such as abusing prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay facility or engaging in defamatory speech, cannot be held individually liable if they are carrying out official duties, the court said.

"The conduct, then, was in the defendants' scope of employment regardless of whether it was unlawful or contrary to the national security of the United States," Appeals Court Chief Judge David Sentelle wrote in the opinion
Actually, breaking the law is almost a job requirement if you want to work in the Dubya maladministration. Why that should make anyone immune from being held accountable for their illegal activities is beyond me.

So, I guess the question I have for Sentelle, then, is: Who is responsible?

(h/t to Think Progress)


Update

Here's links (here and here and here) to the Michael Mukasey School of Law syllabus.


Update 2

Scott Horton confirms that not only is it part of the "scope of employment" to break the law for the Dubya maladministration, it was also explicitly part of the "scope of employment" for Mukasey to provide cover and to help shovel the sh*te out of sight:
Prior to his confirmation, Michael Mukasey fessed up, in a written response to Senator Dick Durbin, to a meeting the White House arranged with a group of movement conservatives. The team he met with had a simple agenda: They wanted his assurance that he would not appoint special prosecutors to go after administration figures involved in serious scandals at the Justice Department, including the U.S. attorneys scandal and the introduction of torture with formal Justice Department cover, and they wanted his assurance that Justice would continue to provide legal cover to “the Program.” The team who met Mukasey included figures on the periphery of the scandal who may have had personal reasons to fear an investigation. But Mukasey is clearly keeping the understanding that brought him to the cherished post of attorney general. And that’s bad news for the Justice Department and its reputation.
Scott Horton has his own name for it:
Today he addressed the annual convention of the American Bar Association, and expanded upon what may be known to future generations as the “Mukasey Doctrine.” This doctrine holds that political appointees in the Justice Department who breach the public trust by using their positions for partisan political purposes face no punishment for their crimes. In the Mukasey view, this is all simple political gamesmanship—“boys will be boys”—and sufficient accountability is provided by exposing their games to the public limelight.
I've been calling it the Michael Mukasey School of Law "curriculum". Emeritus professors include John Yoo. Calling it a "doctrine" is way too generous.

Is it overblown to call this a dictatorship?
  • Put in power by his cronies [on the Supreme Court] in a blatantly corrupt "decision"? Check.
  • Filling the gummint with his party hacks and sycophants, and making it the tool of his party (and nothing else)? Check.
  • Openly defying both the laws and the other branches of gummint [ala Pervez Musharraf] and saying, "you gonna make me, you and whose army?" Check.
  • Rigging elections. Check.
  • Imprisoning people without charges and snooping without warrants? Check.
What else is there? Aren't we "there" yet?

1 Comments:

At 10:13 PM, Blogger Generik said...

Hard to disagree with anything you've said. I think we ARE there, and have been there for some time... and more's the pity for the America that you and I grew up believing in. Because it's gone, and it may never be seen in our lifetimes again.

 

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