Like many veterans of the Justice Department, Alan Jenkins, who served as assistant to the solicitor general under Clinton, is saddened by what happened under Bush: "It's a tragedy . . . and it's going to take years and years to rebuild." No administration "has had to start from scratch the way the Obama administration has," notes Jealous.
That quote pretty much sums up all areas that the Obama administration has been met with. From the collapsing of the economic system to education to EPA to a host of departments under Bush that Obama is left having to rebuild from scratch.
But, the destruction of the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department is just horrendous.
http://www.newsweek.com/...
Newsweek has an article about the findings of a GAO report on the systematic dismantling of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department by Bush.
In dry statistics and even drier prose, a report released last week by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) spells out how sweeping that effort became. The Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division veered away from challenging "at-large election systems" that marginalized African-Americans and focused on language discrimination against Spanish speakers. The Employment Litigation Section moved away from so-called pattern or practice cases (suits that took on widespread or systematic discrimination) in favor of individual complaints. ("Plenty of individual lawyers can bring these individual discrimination cases," pointed out Alan Jenkins, executive director of The Opportunity Agenda, a New York–based nonprofit; but only the Justice Department can pursue certain big cases that can make a real difference.) Bush's Justice Department was also particularly sensitive to discrimination against white males. In 2007 the division filed a suit against Indianapolis for favoring African-Americans and females over white males for promotion to police sergeant.
All that White power stuff we now hear by the conservative talking heads began with Bush and his administration and their focus on and championing the 'civil rights' of White Americans. Especially White Males.
According to Ben Jealous, Head of the Naacp, Bush's agenda was to 'rip the heart out' of the Civil Rights Division. And they almost succeeded.
A typical ploy by the administration is familiar to many kossacks, who have seen this one played out over the past 8 years time and time again:
A 2007 report by the Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights and the Center for American Progress documented the injection of a blatant political agenda into the workings of the Civil Rights Division. The counsel of career staffers was summarily rejected, a section chief was removed by political appointees, numerous high-ranking career attorneys were involuntarily transferred, and a hiring system that emphasized credentials and qualifications was thrown out. The result, said the report, was the resurfacing of the perception of favoritism, cronyism, and political influence.
Stack them with political cronies and drive out the career people who are there to do their job through different administrations of both parties - until Bush.
Surprisingly, another report on the same issue came out also this year, only earlier.
Another report, issued earlier this year by LCCR, argued that not only did the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department become more politically partisan, but so did the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. That process, says LCCR, actually began under the Reagan administration, but Bush took it to a new level. Among other things, he undermined the bipartisanship of the commission that, by law, was supposed to be bipartisan: "On two occasions in recent years, sitting commissioners have changed their party affiliations from Republican to Independent, thus enabling President Bush to appoint additional Republicans to the commission," noted the report.
So, some of it started with Reagan. Seems the gop does have a race problem. However, in the article they point to the positive record for civil rights under Eisenhower and even under Nixon and Ford.
The gop seems to have begun having a big problem with minorities with Reagan and then Bush just put it all on steroids.
The disasters of Bush will take along time to fix, let alone move them forward. Makes you wonder just how much damage he did and to how many departments?