Discover GOP Opprobrium

[teapeebubbles]

Only in the Bush administration.

President Bush's nominee to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was the subject of "at least one complaint of employee abuse," as McClatchy reported Monday. The nominee, David Palmer, was the subject of the complaint when he was (again, prepare yourself for the irony) the chief of the employment litigation section in the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

Palmer was a career lawyer at the Department, but according to a letter from eight veterans of the section, he became indistinguishable from the political appointees in the way that he led the section:

The Section has failed in its core mission to secure the rights of African-Americans, Hispanics, women, and other protected groups, as the number of cases has declined precipitously. On the other hand, the Section filed two reverse discrimination pattern or practice lawsuits under Mr. Palmer’s tenure. In addition, it immersed itself in defending the rights of employers to discriminate based on religion.
You can read the letter here. It was sent Monday to Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who chairs the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, which will handle Palmer's nomination.

In a sign that the heat may be building against Palmer's nomination, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) wrote Kennedy and ranking member Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) yesterday to express his "serious concerns" about Palmer's nomination. The letter is posted below.

The reasons for opposing Palmer's nomination, as outlined in the former Department employees' letter, are not limited to his enforcement of discrimination laws. The letter describes a mediocre, plodding lawyer who was arbitrarily promoted over his colleagues to a senior position, and who, once in power, was just plain mean.

Marian Thompson, formerly a statistician in the section, put it plainly to me. Palmer, she said, was just interested in the "trappings of power" and had "no interest, no knowledge, and no interest in knowing of anything of substance in the section."

It's unclear when the committee will hear Palmer's nomination.