Even Worse Than Being a Democrat?

Wait, wait. I'll get to it.

From Talking Points Memo:

The Department of Justice's inspector general continues to conduct its wide-ranging investigation of the U.S. attorney firings and the general politicization of the Department under Alberto Gonzales. And as we reported back in August of last year, one area of focus by investigators is allegedly political hiring practices by Monica Goodling. The inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility sent out a questionnaire to anyone who had interviewed for a job at the DoJ during Gonzo's tenure. One thing investigators wanted to know about was whether the interviewer had asked about the applicant's sexual orientation.

NPR today provides some more evidence that Goodling and her associates might have decided that being gay was a disqualifier. Leslie Hagen was the liaison between the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys' committee on Native American issues until her contract was suddenly discontinued in October of 2006.

And then from NPR:

The Justice Department's inspector general is investigating whether a career attorney in the department was dismissed from her job because of rumors that she is a lesbian. The case grew out of a larger inquiry into the firings of U.S. attorneys and politicization at Justice under former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. [emphasis added]

Wait, wait. It can't be something as stupid as that can it? There must be some other reason she was let go, right? (I know, I know - we're talking about the Bush administration here. But let's keep playing. It's kinda fun.)

How was she doing at her job? From NPR:

Hagen received the highest possible ratings for her work as liaison between the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys' committee on Native American issues. Her final job evaluation lists five categories for supervisors to rank her performance. For each category, a neat X fills the box marked, "Outstanding." And at the bottom of the page, under "overall rating level," she also got the top mark: Outstanding.

You can even see the evaluation here. Maybe the issue was political (as illegal as that might be). Maybe Hagen was a Democrat or something. Nope:

But by all accounts, Hagen was a GOP loyalist.

There's more:

The Justice Department's inspector general is looking into whether Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that Hagen is a lesbian.

As one Republican source put it, "To some people, that's even worse than being a Democrat."

Life inside the ultra-politicized Bush "Justice" Department. Where torture is justified but lesbians (even Republican lesbians) are worse than Democrats.