Poor Little Monica

Monica Goodling testified before Congress yesterday about her role in the firing of the 7 US Attorneys. She admitted to doing what people already said she had done: inappropriately using political litmus tests in the hiring of prosecutors and DOJ staff. While I am of the mind that she herself should not be focus of all the negative attention (there’s a bigger fish to fry here, and his name is Gonzo), she did make some comments that deserve to be called out.

When asked repeatedly if she had broken the law, she refused to give a straight answer, saying repeatedly things like “that’s not for me to decide” (although, she has a law degree and worked at the Justice Department, so one would certainly have to hope she could figure this one out on her own). Finally she was asked not whether she had broken the law, but whether she believed she had broken the law, to which she responded,

“I believe I crossed the line, but I didn’t mean to.”

That’s nice, if you’re a 9 year old getting in trouble with your mother, but unfortunately for all us grown-ups, “but I didn’t mean to,” doesn’t cut it.

Even more irritating than this little-kiddism was the description she offered of herself,

“At heart, I am a fairly quiet girl, who tries to do the right thing and tries to treat people kindly along the way.”

Seriously? You are a 33 year old woman working in a very serious and powerful job, at the Department of Justice, which is – whatever else it may have become – a workplace for adults. Sandy Levinson at Balkinization has a great post on why this characterization is if not inappropriate then at least very weird. Whether these statements accurately reflect Goodling’s opinion of herself (that she is just a nice girl in the big bad city), or whether they are more cunning statements designed to make listeners feel sorry for her, I don’t really care.

Aside from these irritations, the most interesting part of Goodling’s testimony was that she said that Gonzales’s top aid, who just resigned, had been “not fully candid” in his testimony, and that she had had a conversation with Gonzales before she resigned from the DOJ that made her feel uncomfortable, as though he might have been testing the waters to try to see how she would answer questions before Congress. Gonzo still has Bush’s support though, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happns next.