… Clevenger and the other lawyer recounted Schlozman’s odd handling of their job applications in the spring of 2005. Clevenger said his resume stated that he was a member of the conservative Federalist Society and the Texas chapter of the Republican National Lawyers Association. The other applicant’s resume cited work on President Bush’s 2000 campaign, said the attorney, who insisted upon anonymity for fear of retaliation.
They said Schlozman directed them to drop the political references and resubmit the resumes in what they believed were an effort to hide those conservative affiliations.
Clevenger also recalled once passing on to Schlozman the name of a friend from Stanford as a possible hire.
"Schlozman called me up and asked me something to the effect of, `Is he one of us?’" Clevenger said. "He wanted to know what the guy’s partisan credentials were."
Schlozman, who recently completed more than a year’s service as interim U.S. attorney in Kansas City that was marked with controversy, has drawn harsh criticism over his conduct as the top deputy in the Civil Rights Division starting in 2003 and a term of roughly seven months as its acting chief beginning in the spring of 2005.
Several former department lawyers assailed his treatment of senior employees and his rollback of longstanding policies aimed at protecting African-American voting rights. They blame him for driving veteran attorneys, including section chief Joseph Rich, to resign from their posts.
Rich recently told Congress that 15 of the 35 attorneys in the voting rights section have resigned since 2005. Former employees of the Voting Rights Section told McClatchy of at least eight hires since then of employees with conservative political connections.
The Boston Globe, which obtained resumes of civil rights hires under the Freedom of Information Act, reported Sunday that seven of 14 career lawyers hired under Schlozman were members of either the Federalist Society or the Republican National Lawyers Association.
Critics of the Iraq war said on Tuesday the Bush administration’s failure to replenish vital National Guard equipment sent to Iraq caused Kansas to fall short in responding to last week’s tornado disaster, and other states were equally vulnerable.
The White House and the Pentagon rebuffed the criticism, saying Kansas and other states had adequate resources that they could share in event of disasters like the Kansas tornado that leveled one small town on Friday and killed 10 in the area.
The debate was ignited by Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, a Democrat, who said on Monday the federal government had failed to replace state National Guard equipment deployed to Iraq and the lack of equipment was hindering rescue and recovery efforts after a weekend of violent weather in the Midwestern state.
Tornadoes on Friday and Saturday were followed by widespread flooding, exacerbating the need for National Guard resources, according to the governor.
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Our National Defense and Emergency Response programs are in shambles. Bush has waged his war abroad using National Guardsmen and the National Guard equipment. We essentially have no National Defense, or Emergency preparedness. He has perverted the system in order to fight a sensless war in Iraq at the expense of necessary preparedness at home.
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Our Justice Department at the Federal Level has become an arm of the Republican Party. The U.S. Attorney firings are the tip of the iceberg. Essentially, the Justice Department is compromised, incapable of mounting an investigation [of itself].
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Even the Congress is not functional. No matter what they pass, Bush attaches a Signing Statement reinterpreting what parts of the law he will and will not uphold.
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Our foreign policy is at a standstill. This Administration has withdrawn from diplomacy, and world mistrust of the U.S. is at a justifiable all time high. No one with any sense wants to have anything to do with us.
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