Attorney scandal isn't isolated

Other Horton makes a point I've been meaning to make with respect to you know who - the Attorney scandal isn't isolated, the same thing is true of the IGs:

"In our democracy, we have several institutional guardians of the powerful. One is the Department of Justice, with its service of detached, professional U.S. attorneys, sworn to uphold the law and eschew even the outward appearance of politics as they discharge their duties. And another is the inspectors general sprinkled throughout the Washington bureaucracy—designed to look into accusations of wrong-doing, and to test the complaints of whistleblowers.

So how do the guardians fare in the reign of Bush? As for the U.S. attorneys, alas, that sordid tale is playing itself out in the headlines and at present there is no early prospect of it coming to an end. To the contrary, the posture of the Bush Administration is entrenched—we did nothing wrong; we have a right to place the nation’s prosecutorial service under the control of Karl Rove and use it as a tool to advance the position of the Republican Party.

So what about the inspectors general? I observed some time back that under the Bush Administration, there had been a practice from almost the start of appointing only the most dedicated political hacks to the inspectors general offices. By and large the appointees are short on credentials or experience as prosecutors, forensic accountants, or investigators and very long on credentials for in-the-trenches partisan warfare. And how do they interact with whistleblowers? I had some first hand experience early on observing that process. In general, they work overtime to harass and discredit any whistleblower. Rather than examine the information the whistleblower turns over and follow-up to see if the problem is real and how serious it is, they generally start going after the whistleblower with tongs and hammer. His confidences are quickly exposed, and his character is quickly impugned. The message which is send couldn’t be simpler: sound an alarm, and your career is finished.
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Ah, but this is Bushworld, where inspectors general exist not to root out fraud and corruption, but to introduce it and to cover it up when others do it."