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(Adorable photo of some cowboys bellying up to the bar for a sarsparilla via Party of Seven.)

It seems that I. Lewis Libby's conviction on four felony counts has had some personal repercussions:

the D.C. Bar suspended Libby's law license Wednesday. The temporary suspension is a result of his conviction last month for perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice. The suspension is effective until the Board of Professional Responsibility decides whether to boot Libby from the ranks of the legal field for good.

Of course, Libby wasn't exactly a member in good standing before. The Bar suspended his law license in October 2006 for nonpayment of dues — something he could have fixed by paying the approximately $180 annual fee.

Libby, a Columbia Law School grad who became a member of the D.C. Bar in 1978, was also suspended for nonpayment of dues in December 2001 and reinstated in November 2005.

What is it with Bush Administration officials and their failure to pay professional bar dues? Harriet Miers had a similar issue, as did one of the candidates nominated to replace John McKay (the ousted USAtty in Washington state). And nominees for Appeals Court positions.  And on and on.

It is this continual flouting of the rules that irritates me to no end.  I maintain my law license, even though I'm no longer practicing — because you never know when you might need to switch back to an active status and pick up that trial practice where you left off. Something may tempt me out of my "recovering attorney" status, so I keep that option open. And I pay my annual dues to do so. My state bar association sends me a notice every year, and I pay my fee every year to maintain this status. It's quite simple: get the bill, write a check, mail the check with a stamp, and presto!

Every lawyer who maintains a license with any bar association has to do the same thing, in pretty much any jurisdiction across the nation.  To not do so is sloppy — and it is just that sort of lax attitude toward detail that has seeped into every nook and cranny of how the Bushies do business.

But, that is not always the case for folks who have dedicated their lives to public service. Most people who work in the public sector, that I know anway, do so because they believe in the job — that it is important to have it done, and done well, for public safety, for the betterment of the community, and a myriad of other reasons. Not to enrich themselves as the primary objective, but to enrich the communities in which they are working. Reader moi sent me a great link to an interview with Patrick Collins, an outgoing AUSA in Patrick Fitzgerald's office in Chicago, and it sums up a bit of what I've been feeling as I've watched the downward spiral of dreck seep outward from the USAtty firings mess:

Private citizen Collins can now speak more freely than prosecutor Collins, and he is incensed that his friend US attorney Pat Fitzgerald could somehow be ranked by his higher-ups as mediocre.

"It bothers me to no end that a 35-year-old guy can evaluate Pat Fitzgerald and call him mediocre when he doesn't know the first thing about being a public servant," said Collins. "And when the attorney general came to tow[n] last week and was sitting next to Pat, had every opportunity to put his arm around Pat and say, this is one of the best guys I got — he said nothing."

That anger and frustration over politics in the Department of Justice is shared by other prosecutors. Collins is now free to express it. Part of his new mission at Perkins Coie will be to set up much of the firm's pro-bono work, which may center around juvenile court matters, though that remains a work in progress — as does a career.

In the above bit, Collins is talking about Pat Fitzgerald. (And do watch the video at the link above.  It's good to get inflection and expression on this.) But he could be talking about any number of career prosecutors or law enforcement types around the country — people who have put their time, their intellect, sometimes even their lives on the line to make their communities a safer, better place. Most of these folks want to do the right thing in terms of enforcing the law while balancing a commitment to the constitution, to civil liberties and to justice.

The Bush Administration's attempt to put a heavy thumb on the scales of justice that emphasizes political loyalty above all else perverts the system, and endangers our commitment to the rule of law. Political fealty and electoral mathematics are not, nor should they ever be, the primary considerations in prosecutorial decisions. And respect for the hard-earned wisdom of actually doing the work — day in and day out, long hour after long hour, autopsy photo after autopsy photo, brief after brief after brief after argument after brief…the fact that these dedicated public servants were being judged by wet-behind-the-ears political loyalists who were interested solely in the Rule of Karl makes me beyond angry.

The lax attitude of the Bush Administration — from the little things (like paying one's bar dues) to the bigger ones (like not betraying a covert CIA operative and following the rules as required by the SF-312) — permeate every aspect of our nation's administrative functions.  The problems in the Department of Justice are only one small piece of this puzzle.  The glimpse that we got into potential politicization of the GSA is yet another piece.  And I ask myself how many more we will find as the sunlight of oversight seeps in to all the dark, festering nooks and crannies, so long forgotten and ignored by the Rubber Stamp Republican Congress.

That Alberto Gonzales went along with this makes him nothing more than an empty suit rather than an officer of the court. For shame.

Related posts:

  1. The Taxpayers Paid Dick Cheney’s Personal Defense Attorney to Obstruct Any Inquiries Into His Crimes
  2. The Bush Fairy Tale on the Libby Pardon
  3. Cheney’s Lawyer Already Leaked the Content of Cheney’s “Privileged” Interview
  4. Patrick Fitzgerald Gets a Promotion
  5. The Secrets Novak Took to the Grave