Hatch Act: Not Front Page News

Yesterday wasn't one of the great days in the history of political-career relations, was it? The revelation that the Office of Special Counsel has concluded that GSA Administrator Lurita Doan violated the Hatch Act didn't even make the front-pages. It got pushed off by the testimony of Monica Goodling, a senior aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who told the House Judiciary Committee that she had used political criteria in evaluating applicants for career Justice Department positions. Best quote from the Washington Post account of her appearance: "I do acknowledge that I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions and may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions. I regret these mistakes."