Onward Christian Lawyers

To continue with the Monica Goodling theme here, Hanna Rosin has an article at the Washington Post about the the growing number of evangelical lawyers that are graduating from christian colleges around the country. Ms. Rosin's contention is that Ms. Goodling and her ilk are part of the establishment in Washington, so you better get used to the Ms. Goodlings of the world. They can certainly get a job at the White House for a couple more years and according to Ms. Rosin there are 150 congressmen who call themselves evangelicals.

Ms Rosin has a book coming out this fall and this opinion piece seems to be a great way to promote the book.

Hanna Rosin, who covered religion for The Post, is the author of "God's Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America," due out in September.

She speaks of how sharp these young people are and how dedicated to serve in what she called the right-wing's "peace corp".

Recently, I spent a lot of time among the students at Patrick Henry College, a seven-year-old school founded in much the same spirit as Regent. The students there easily matched Goodling's description of herself as "anal retentive." They input their daily schedules into Palm Pilots in 15-minute increments -- read Bible, do crunches, take shower, study for Latin quiz. They intern at the White House. The atmosphere is much more Harvard than Bob Jones.

The school seems more into indoctrination than education. This is the mission statement of what Ms. Rosin seems to think is like Harvard:

The Mission of Patrick Henry College is to prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding. Educating students according to a classical liberal arts curriculum, and training them with apprenticeship methodology, the College provides academically excellent baccalaureate level higher education with a biblical world view.

This is a scary scenario, but it's ok with me if this is your view of America. I like to have plenty of crazies around, it makes me seem almost sane. What Ms. Rosin has not really discussed is how they got these big government jobs in the first place. Were they the best and the brightest or were they just properly indoctrinated. It's obvious that the right-wing crazies have totally corrupted the republican party with their brand of evangelical lunacy and talent has nothing to do with it. If they have the diploma, someone will tell them what to do as in Ms. Goodling's case.
According to everyone from the justice dept including Ms. Goodling, the list of who to fire must have been created by some form of immaculate conception. The list just appeared as if from some right-wing republican god smiting the vile liberals.

Here is how Ms. Goodling and her law school is described:

The graduate from Regent -- which is ranked a "tier four" school by US News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a tie for 136th place -- was not the only lawyer with modest credentials to be hired by the Civil Rights Division after the administration imposed greater political control over career hiring.

The changes resulted in a sometimes dramatic alteration to the profile of new hires beginning in 2003, as the Globe reported last year after obtaining resumes from 2001-2006 to three sections in the civil rights division. Conservative credentials rose, while prior experience in civil rights law and the average ranking of the law school attended by the applicant dropped.

In other words, you could be a less than ideal candidate as long as you were the right kind of candidate. Read that as a right-wing theocrat with dreams of dominionism.

The Monica Goodlings of the world scare me, but talent and training will tell. Plus, when they live in this world for a while the truth might actually dawn upon them.

Jim Martin