Today's morning revelation comes to you from the rough-and-tumble conservative blogosphere, which is now so tough that it is calling out individual people who are mean to congressmen.
The most recent offender is Dan Freeman, who claims to have started the round of booing that greeted Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Faded Dreamland) when he made an appearance at the inauguration Monday. Since he is not a Corporation, we are furious that he is allowed to have political speech!
The problem, National Review explains, is that he — egad! —
works for the government:
[A} lawyer in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice, Dan Freeman, proudly announced on his Facebook page that he “started the crowd booing when Paul Ryan came out”* at the inauguration...
Freeman was brought into the Voting Section “following a fellowship at the New York Civil Liberties Union. He previously interned at the ACLU, where he assisted the organization with its efforts to attack the Bush administration’s national security policies. He also helped to challenge the ‘state secrets privilege’ and to support the rights of terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay during an internship at Human Rights First. On his résumé, Freeman proudly notes his membership in the liberal American Constitution Society, as well as his service as co-chair of the Yale Law School Democrats.”
Oh no. An Ivy-educated lawyer with experience analyzing governmental overreach and potential violations of civil liberties... has been hired to litigate governmental overreach and potential violations of civil liberties?!
This is particularly important at the Justice Department, which is the chief law-enforcement agency of the government and one of the most powerful agencies in the executive branch. Nothing could possibly be worse for its reputation than the belief that its prosecutions are being pursued in the interests of partisan political advantage, not the interests of blind justice.
Let us enumerate poor, misguided Dan's crimes:
"He previously interned at the ACLU, where he assisted the organization with its efforts to attack the Bush administration’s national security policies."
If you were rooting for Bush and/or taking a poo on the Fourth Amendment, you call it "attacking national security policies," with the implication that no one should dare do such a thing unless they are a terrorist. If you are a civil liberties lawyer , one would assume, you would call it "doing your damn job, because maybe it should be hard for the government to do that kind of thing."
"He also helped to challenge the ‘state secrets privilege’ and to support the rights of terrorist detainees at Guantanamo Bay"
He suggested that maybe the human beings we have caged up in Cuba should maybe not just be held forever, until they die, without somebody having to prove they did anything wrong? WHO DOES THIS GUY THINK HE IS?
And now, now we have the worst offense of all: He booed the guy who lost an election in November. Disgusting.
There is also probably no doubt that he will be treated as a hero when he returns to the office today, instead of being referred to the Office of Professional Responsibility and disciplined for publicly embarrassing the department and publicly showing how left-wing ideology and pure partisanship drives too many of the career civil servants who work there.
Again, in case you forgot what this was all about: HE BOOED PAUL RYAN. This one syllable word resulted in his "publicly showing how left-wing ideology and pure partisanship drives too many of the career civil servants who work there," and he should be disciplined, obviously, because he was yelling, "Booooo, I am with the Department of Justice, and in this capacity I say, boooooo." He must have been, because otherwise the Hatch Act doesn't apply, and the NRO Patriot Act cheerleader is actually trying to get the government to censor private citizens. That doesn't seem accurate, does it?
*Not "came out" like that. Probably.
[ NRO ]
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Is punchable a real word?
Especially one who was employed by the government.