Justice in the Gutter (Scott Horton)

Saturday the New York Times alerts us to a new opinion issued deep in the bowels of the Bush Justice Department. The decision emanates from the Office of Legal Counsel, an outfit stuffed to the gills with partisan hacks whose other criminal mischief includes a series of decisions issued to induce government operatives to engage in torture and other acts of official cruelty.

When sunlight touches these writings, they tend to turn to dust. Exposed to the sanitizing criticism of the public, of Congress, and of the legal profession, they are revealed for works of glaring hackery. No proposition is too preposterous that it cannot be advanced in an OLC memorandum these days. They are now taught in law schools around the country as models of substandard, unprofessional and incompetent legal work.

But this week, the OLC coughed up another furball. This opinion is designed to grease the tracks for payoffs to the Karl Rove’s Christianist buddies, who were essential to the Bush-Cheney campaigns in 2000 and 2004, and who hit paydirt almost immediately when team Bush moved into the White House. Still, the Christianists have faced some irritating restrictions in their prolific consumption of taxpayer dollars. One is the requirement that a federally funded entity not discriminate in hiring on the basis of confession. OLC has now opined that this presents no problem. In concept there is no reason why faith-based organizations should not be eligible to receive taxpayer money for the performance of services that serve a public need. But if they elect to take this money, they cannot be allowed to discriminate in hiring to exclude persons of other faiths. That is a fundamental principle.

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