Because Monica still matters. For those who don't: Monica Goodling was hired by Karl Rove to ensure that all the non-partisan jobs at Department of Justice were filled with Bush partisans. This was blatantly illegal, so essentially her full time job was to ensure that Federal law was routinely violated.
And Monica is part of the answer to the question of the day: Is the DoJ coordinating efforts against Occupations?
Here's the latest from Rick Ellis of the Examiner online.
I've spoken to several DHS officials on background in the last 24 hours, and they stressed several things to me.
First, despite some press reports to the contrary, the only official DHS role in any 'Occupy' arrests took place in Portland. In that case, officers from Federal Protective Services (which is tasked with protecting federal buildings) assisted the Portland Police Bureau in clearing the federally-owned Terry Shrunk Plaza. Officers from FPS did make several arrests, although it's not clear how many.
... SNIP ...
When I tried to get a sense of how much involvement the department may have had in assisting local tactical plans, I was told DHS is not actively coordinating with local governments or police agencies on the 'Occupy' evictions.
This is the same guy who started the furor with this article.
It appears that Mr. Ellis' oeuvre prior to becoming famous for the coordination article focused mainly on TV shows. Prior to writing about Occupy, his previous articles were about Michael J. Fox playing Johnny B. Goode and NBC News hiring Chelsea Clinton.
More below the Orange Squiggle of Power.
Let's assume for the moment that Rick Ellis is a straight shooter. The question of integrity then moves to his single, unnamed source at DoJ: Mr. or Mrs. Source.
Why did Source approach Rick Ellis, or vice-versa? Does it not seem likely that Source and Ellis had a relationship of some sort prior to this leak ... and Source trusted Ellis to present the story as Source wanted it presented?
Put yourself into the place of Source. If you really think something important is happening in terms of Federal involvement against Occupations, why do you not call Glenn Greenwald? Or Michael Moore? Or Rachael, or Keith? Why break the story to a guy who gets paid by the click?
Possible interpretations in my estimated order of likelihood.
- Source didn't think this was a big story. Which means Source is either not very politically savvy, or Source didn't mean what many think was meant by the article. Because one way to read that article is that if a city calls and asks for advice from the Feds, they receive advice - information is pulled, not pushed. This is consistent with Ellis' second article about "no active role"
- Source is a conservative playing Rick Ellis for a fool. They knew he would run with their story without double-checking and this would serve conservative purposes of turning Occupiers and sympathizers further against Obama and Democrats
- Source knew this was a big story and wanted Ellis to tell it because of the prior relationship. In which case Source is probably not a high ranking person and doesn't really know what happens at the highest levels - because let's face it, if someone high up wanted to break this story, they would have relationships with bigger journalistic names than Rick Ellis
- Source really is a high ranking non-conservative who knows exactly what the score is and really really likes Rick Ellis
#1 is really a non-story; Federal agencies do serve as repositories of expertise, do provide advice and training to local agencies, and do this all the time, in law enforcement and in other areas.
#2 is a big story if true. A question worth asking is why someone at DoJ provided information that was about what DHS was doing; and given that DoJ is known to be full of Rove minions, you should be alert to the possibility
#3 is really a non-story; mid-level bureaucrat who doesn't really know what's happening chats with journalist who doesn't know any context
#4 is the interpretation I have seen presented here in several posts and makes very little sense to me for the reasons stated. Someone a step or two or three away from Eric Holder is NOT going to be breaking this story to someone in Minneapolis, and also NOT to a blogger.
So as you debate this issue, do keep possibility #2 in mind. If Rick Ellis is being played by Karl Rove via Source, you don't want to be helping him. In fact, I'd suspect that one thing all Kossacks agree on is that we don't want to help Karl Rove.