Monica Goodling: They Like Her, They Really Like Her
Those of you who read our extensive liveblogging of Monica Goodling’s testimony on Wednesday before the House Judiciary Committee know how deeply impressed we were.
Goodling was poised, intelligent, and articulate. She showed flashes of wit, as well as consistent honesty and forthrightness. She looked like a million bucks.
On a scale of 0 to 10, we’d score Monica Goodling’s performance on Capitol Hill as a 9.3. It wasn’t a perfect 10; Rep. Artur Davis landed a few punches in the eleventh round. But Monica “Hurts So” Goodling ultimately emerged victorious from the boxing ring of the Rayburn House Office Building, with barely a glove laid on her.
We weren’t alone in our assessment. Distinguished legal commentators, including law professors like Orin Kerr and Adam Gershowitz, also raved over La Goodling’s star turn.
And this morning, via Howard Bashman, we come across more praise of Goodling, from an unlikely source. Check out this great online essay (registration required), by Eve Fairbanks of The New Republic — no bastion of conservatism.
Discussion continues after the jump.
(Yeah, we know, TNR isn’t as consistently liberal as it used to be. But our point is that it’s no National Review.)
Fairbanks begins the piece as follows:
I get to the House Judiciary Committee room 20 minutes before ex-Department of Justice White House liaison Monica Goodling’s hearing is set to begin, and the place is already a madhouse…. Amid the chaos, a committee aide shoves me into a standing-room slot beside a gleeful, obese television producer. He is bellowing into his BlackBerry. “The news from the witness room,” he says, “is that they removed the box of tissues from the witness stand!”So somebody thought poor Monica Goodling was going to cry during her testimony. No surprise there. During the U.S. attorney scandal’s long unraveling, the 33-year-old Regent Law School grad has developed a pitiable [reputation for fragility].
Those who were expecting a teary breakdown on the witness stand, however, were doomed to disappointment:
[T]he sad truth is that Goodling—the shlump everybody, from Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty to low-level political appointees to the New York Times editorial page loved to blame—was more impressive in her hearing than the attorney general and his former chief of staff combined. Which isn’t to say she was enlightening—after leaving the hearing, I still don’t know why most of the eight U.S. attorneys were fired. But unlike Alberto “I don’t recall” Gonzales and Kyle “I failed” Sampson, she was on topic and willing to point the finger.
Credentials snobs, take note. Goodling, the Regent Law graduate, outperformed Alberto Gonzales, a Harvard Law grad and former Biglaw partner, and D. Kyle Sampson, a Chicago Law grad and former federal appeals court clerk.
She answered yes or no questions with yeses and nos. She had witty moments — responding to freshman Democrat Steve Cohen’s question about the large number of Regents graduates working in the Bush administration, she said “I think we have a lot more people from Harvard and Yale.” She even assumed the look of an embarrassed church girl when the House Republicans took their duty to protect and defend her to comic levels. During his questioning, Republican Darrell Issa—who competed with Dan Lungren and James Sensenbrenner for the prince-on-a-white-steed-here-to-rescue-Monica role—bellowed, “[Y]ou chose to be non-partisan very often.” Goodling flushed and smiled a sad little smile.“I’m afraid I don’t have a comment on that,” she said.
Goodling was very well prepared by her excellent counsel, John Dowd (former boss of the Akin Gump Escort). We imagine that she spent weeks getting ready for her appearance, like a Supreme Court nominee cramming for confirmation hearings. She probably spent hours and hours being grilled by Dowd and his associates in mock testimony, like a SCOTUS nominee being interrogated by so-called “murder boards.”
And in the end, Monica Goodling was vindicated. This is a story with a moral: diligence pays dividends. The hard work and preparation skills that fueled her meteoric rise through the legal profession — from a fourth-tier law school to the Office of the Attorney General, zooming past countless Ivy League graduates — once again paid off for Monica Goodling.
Monica Goodling’s Not Totally Botched Testimony [TNR Online]
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Comments
Sidley raised in Chicago.
Sidley raised in several offices, including Dallas.
If she stepped in front of my car, I wouldn't stop.
Monica is a Christianist - a Jerry Falwell ["gays deserved AIDS"] disciple.
She gives me the creeps.
Another radical right wing fundie. When is the GOP going to save itself from the likes of these people?
Regardless of what anyone says about her law school, she is obviously very talented. That type of performance will earn her a job somewhere. She will do well.
Lat - totally biased. Goodling's performance was not good as much as the committee's performance was bad. aside from rep. davis, of the reps who actually wanted to question, they had the interrogation/questioning skills of a 4-year-old trying to play CIA. this was pointed out by most commenters, see, e.g. orin kerr, excerpted below:
Monica Goodling Testimony: I watched about an hour of Monica Goodling's testimony before the House Judiciary Committee this morning, and I thought it was pretty uneventful so far. Based on what I saw, Goodling is a far more skillful witness than the House members are questioners. Most of the Democratic House members are just reading questions off a script prepared by staffers, and they don't seem comfortable enough to go off-script to pursue something Goodling said...
also, e.g., dahlia lithwick:
Democrats who might have pursued the leads she floated about the White House role in the firings stop asking these questions once Goodling fails to implicate Rove. They are so blindsided by her admission of injecting politics into her own hiring practices that they forget to ask who else at the DoJ might have directed her to do so, or done so themselves. She tells Brad Sherman, D-Calif., that she looked at Web sites detailing the political contributions made by applicants for assistant U.S. attorney positions, and that she felt she could take account of political considerations in evaluating immigration judges. (Kyle Sampson told her that was OK.) She tells the committee that she didn't give one job candidate a position, adding, "I didn't know she was a Democrat. But I had heard she was a liberal." The committee, however, seems to miss all this. Indeed, they are so delighted when she points fingers at Sampson and McNulty, they don't remember to ask what precisely Sampson and McNulty did....
Goodling sucks worse than Chicago.
11:23: She won't do well as a lawyer - she should be disbarred.
"And in the end, Monica Goodling was vindicated. This is a story with a moral: diligence pays dividends."
Whaaaaaa? She had to testify before Congress because she acted improperly while in office! Sure, she answered questions well. But let's take a step back from "vindicated." And perhaps she should have been more diligent in following the law -- and maybe she wouldn't have had to testify at all.
Let's not forget that she admitted to breaking the law. That doesn't exactly make her a rock star.
She also accused both Gonzales and McNulty of lying to Congress under oath.
All this in spite of the democrats' incompetence on the panel.
CH list of shame:
Jenner
Katten
McDermott
Sonnenschein
Winston
Holland & Knight
Bell Boyd
Baker McKenzie
Foley
Wildman Harrold
DLA Piper
Schiff
So she did ok against the junior varsity (aka the House)...so what?
At some point, she's going to have to go up against the varsity (the Senate). The Senate will have the benefit of being able to review the off-Broadway debut of her testimony. Further, unlike the House, where the the R's are unified behind the DOJ and AGAG, she will receive hostile questioning from both sides of the aisle.
She'll do about as well there as raw meat in a shark tank.
GeeneParmesan's back. Raises: triggered.
Goodling admitted to screening job applicants based on perceived political affiliation. She accused her bosses at the DOJ of providing incomplete or misleading testimony to Congress. Despite her title of White House Liason, she denied having any discussions with the key White House officials about the AG firings. And she claimed to have no idea how or why any specific AGs were added to or removed from the "hit list." It's as if the list just appeared by magic (or, in this administration, perhaps it was divine intervention).
Your preoccupation with style over substance is really awful here: much of what she said was very disturbing. In essence, her testimony was that she didn't have the authority implied by her title or rank and that she abused the authority she did have. This qualifies her as a superstar?
Sure, she was all polished up. She spoke in complete sentences with properly conjugated verbs. She admitted to having a memory. If you want to say that she exceeded expectations, fine--but we used to be able to take those sorts of things for granted before Bush's appointees lowered the bar. I don't see how you can say that in the end she was "vindicated" when she flatly admitted to hiring abuses that might well have resulted in criminal prosecution in the absence of the grant of immunity.
My take on her testimony is closer to this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301422.html
I second badling's comments, and suggest you read Christy Hardin Smith's recent posts at www.firedoglake.com. Goodling is not out of the woods. She may well be under investigation by the DOJ and has probably not heard the last of the allegations concerning her hiring abuses.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/24/AR2007052402032.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
interesting piece. also somewhat inspiring in attempting to fight these people, legally and politically.
Monica did fantastic! True diva. Only shame is that most of America stopped caring about this 6 months ago so she doesn't get her full day in the sun.
For a slightly different take, see Dana Milbank's article. He was a little less than impressed with Ms. Goodling. Maybe because he actually listened to the words that came out of her mouth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301446.html
she has bad skin
she has bad skin
She did Regent founder Pat Robertson proud!
The reviews are in and it looks like 10's across the boards.
This is really thrilling. Monica must be so excited by her outstanding performance before those liberal democrats. They tried to make her look bad and even questioned her education background. That is just rude.
Never underestimate a woman who has God in her heart and on her side. Monica is destined for greatness. Maybe down the road with a liilt more experience our next Supreme Court Justice or even to replace Gonzo. I could definitely see her as our first nationwide Attorney General. She would deman respect whereever she went.
Also Monica is very attractive with that long flowing blonde hair.
This will also help her in the future. Attractive people tend to do well in the workforce. Not to say that she isn't smart and talented. Obviously, you don't get to that level without being smart and talented. But to have the looks added in makes her a formidable rock star.
I am sure when she enters a room heads turn.
Sometimes, my husband lets me out of the house, though I usually need to cover up. Sometimes, I show some ankle, though my husband doesn't like that too much. Even though I consider myself fairly attractive, I don't think it's God's will for me to think impure thoughts, so I basically consider myself sexless. Joy and desire should be banished from your life; only God should reign in your heart and in your head. Liberal Democrats only want joy and other immoral things. Shame on them.
Someone posted under my name at 3:45 on this post and it wasn't me. I do not believe thos things.
Please don't use my name to post to the website. People will get confused that I really mean some of those things which I don't.
Myrna, are you married? What do you do (job-wise)?
Wow - if you think that she was "articulate" then you must think that Leon Spinks should give voice lessons.
Or, uh, I think that, um, there were, uh . . .
How many of those who hold that the Tier 4 status of Goodling's law school precludes her from any position of responsibility in the government favor an up-or-down vote in the Senate on the judicial nomination of Peter Keisler, whose academic credentials are impeccable?
Blondes do immunity better.
ATLs coverage of Goodling is embarrassingly sycophantic. She violated the Hatch act repeatedly and transformed the DOJ into a warehouse for partisan hacks. Everything they do is subject to question, they do not represent the United States but an unpopular minority clinging to control; one whose dictates may very well be reversed in a few months time.
Please for the love of god get a girlfriend and some objectivity.
ATLs coverage of Goodling is embarrassingly sycophantic. She violated the Hatch act repeatedly and transformed the DOJ into a warehouse for partisan hacks. Everything they do is subject to question, they do not represent the United States but an unpopular minority clinging to control; one whose dictates may very well be reversed in a few months time.
Please for the love of god get a girlfriend and some objectivity.
hey, you lawyers can help me out on this question. People keep saying she broke a law, I assume by considering political party membership. I remember that was 5 USC something (252? I'm in class and can't look it up right now). People keep saying break the law break the law, but is that so? And what's the penalty?
I doubt this is the only relevant provision, bit 5 USC s 2302(b) provides (in part):
Any employee who has authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action, shall not, with respect to such authority--
(1) discriminate for or against any employee or applicant for employment--
(E) on the basis of marital status or political affiliation, as prohibited under any law, rule, or regulation;
The Goodling Girl
How Monica Goodling played the gender card and won.
By Emily Bazelon and Dahlia Lithwick
http://www.slate.com/id/2165447/
Look past Goodling's long, silky blond hair, which may or may not have been a distraction. She's entitled to have pretty hair. Look past her trembling hand as she swore her oath and the tremulous voice as she described her "family" at Justice. What really shot Goodling into the stratosphere of baby-doll girls were her own whispered words: "At heart," she testified, "I am a fairly quiet girl, who tries to do the right thing and tries to treat people kindly along the way." The idea, of course, was to scrub away her past image as ruthless, power-mad, and zealously Christian. But—as professor Sandy Levinson noted almost immediately over at Balkinization—it was in calling herself a "girl" that the 33-year-old did herself a great favor. It was a signal to the committee that she was no Kyle Sampson. Or Anita Hill.
"Quiet girl" appears in her written remarks, but in her spoken remarks she said "quiet person." See for yourself on cspan.org
Seems that Emily and Dahlia are falsely suggesting that they actually listened to her testimony.
I am not married and never been married but I am still young and looking for that special person. Thanks for asking though!
I work as a lawyer for a corporation dealing with acquisitions, mergers in the life sciences area.
Yes, God is important to me-please don't ridicule me for this. I am religious but I also like to have a good time! I do read the bible often because I enjoy it-again please don't make fun of me for this.
Dear Myrna:
Are you bullshitting us or what?
The All About Eve Meme spreads:
Goodling described one bit of office politics as a clash between two "Type A" women in which she played the Eve Harrington character in "All About Eve" and won.
from:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/24/AR2007052402032.html
8:36 no I am being honest. I don't think of myself as such an anomoly but I guess on this site I am.
Goodling is so HAWT!
While National Review is 100% hackitude, TNR is different in that it is only 90% hackitude. Of course Eve Fairbanks is the hackiest of hacks at TNR and would give anyone at National Review, or even Weekly Standard for that matter, a run for their money.