The corruption runs so deep in this administration it is sickening.
Billmon has a frightening post this morning about the hatchet man Bush has appointed to keep Fitzie leashed.
Josh Marshall wonders what it might mean for the special prosecutor's case now that U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty has been nominated for the number-two job at the Justice Department. I suspect the short answer is: nothing good.
McNulty, U.S. Attorney for the very high-profile eastern district of Virginia, is the substitute for Tim Flanigan, the Abramoff-tainted nominee who withdrew his name earlier this month. Like Flanigan -- and unlike Fitzgerald -- McNulty is a Republican loyalist in the mold of the flatulant cable TV duo of Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, the Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn of partisan spin.
Before Bush appointed him to the eastern Va. post (he took office three days after 9/11) McNulty was one of John Ashcroft's political flunkies at DoJ. Before that he headed the Bush transition team for the department. Before that he was chief counsel for Dick Armey, the former GOP House Majority Leader. Before that he was chief counsel and "communictions director" for the House Judiciary Committee. While in this position -- according to an alumni profile from his alma mater Grove City College -- he also:
directed house Republican media relations for the Clinton impeachment process.
Other than that, of course, his impartiality is beyond question.
Billmon has even more
This is so sickening I gotta take a shower. But first a poll.