So much for the Independence of the DOJ...

Unless this report represents an effort to reassert the non-partisan mission of that agency. Pat Robertson-educated White House liaison Monica Goodling used politics - candidates positions on "God, guns and gays" to decide who got hired.

• Last month, the inspector general, Glenn A. Fine, and the Office of Professional Responsibility released a separate report that found a similar pattern of politicized hiring at the Justice Department in reviewing applications from young lawyers for the honors and intern programs.

Gonzales probably had no idea, as he is too much of a Bush-like idiot hack as opposed to a Rove-type political thinker/strategist. (For those of you who don't follow this stuff closely, this is not related to the attorney firings scandal, though the criteria used to prosecute the scandal was roughly the same.)

• The inspector general’s investigation found that Ms. Goodling and a handful of other senior aides to Mr. Gonzales used in-person interviews and Internet searches to screen out candidates who might be too liberal and identify candidates seen as pro-Republican and supportive of President Bush. One senior official, in describing Ms. Goodling’s strategy, likened it to a “farm system” used to fill temporary vacancies at the Justice Department with Republicans who could then move up.

Maybe he did know, I just think he was kept out of it because he was an idiot and Rove recognized that.
- posted by john @ 7:10 PM