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Sanity is always appreciated even when it takes a while to put on its slippers and smell the coffee, Charges Dropped Against Creative Writing Student

Sparing themselves a futile court battle against the First Amendment and common sense, prosecutors today dropped disorderly conduct charges against Allen Lee, the Illinois high school honor student arrested last month for a creative writing essay.

I was going to link to a copy of the essay that the Chicago-Tribune has on line, but it went into achieve.
Loyal to the White House, Not the Rule of Law

Goodling opened her testimony with a declaration that she had “no desire” to speak negatively about those she worked with in the Bush administration. She then proceeded to point fingers of blame at members of what she described as her DOJ “family,” including those who had revealed details of her role in the scandal over the hiring and firing of US Attorneys for political reasons.

Goodling went on to:

• confirm that former DOJ Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson had compiled a list of US Attorneys who would be fired — apparently for being insufficiently partisan in their inquiries and prosecutions — and that Gonzales had been aware of the list and involved in meetings about it,

• place White House political czar Karl Rove in a room where the firings were discussed,

• acknowledge that, as early as 2OO5, there was talk about forcing US Attorneys out to make way for White House favorites and

[ ]…”I do acknowledge that I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions, and may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions,” Goodling told the committee early in her testimony. She said she made “snap judgments” to block qualified applicants because they were Democrats or “liberal.” Only under intense questioning from committee members Linda Sanchez, D-California, and Jerry Nadler, D-New York, did she offer the details and perspective that made it clear her so-called “mistakes” were part of a deliberate and ongoing pattern of politicization of the hiring process at the nation’s chief law-enforcement agency.

There might be a tendency to think so what. She was testifying under oath and it all seemed more like another Oliver North moment. Just two things. If she lied under oath her immunity does not protect her from perjury charges. Two, while not as satisfying as seeing Sampson and Rove marched off to jail where they belong Goodling’s testimony focused some needed sunshine into the deeply ideologically and morally corrupt manner in which the country’s highest law enforcement office operated.