We are like chameleons, we take our hue and the color of our moral character, from those who are around us.
— John Locke
On another thread, we had a heated discussion about the merits of David Margolis’ tenure as the DoJ’s top civil servant and chief fixer, its Atticus Finch or its Winston Wolf, depending on your grasp of the facts and your perspective. It focused on his role in neutering a much anticipated and long-delayed OPR report, one that heavily criticized the work of John Yoo and Jay Bybee, which gave the BushCheney administration the legal cover it sought for its program of torture.
That post is part of a well-documented series, in which Marcy Wheeler analyzed the politicization of the DoJ, and its continuing to shield itself and its former lawyers from their wrongful acts. In my opinion, that series also demonstrated the potential corruption of the Department of Justice, from chief law enforcer for the people of the United States to chief criminal defense law firm for the executive branch.
The narrow question about David Margolis’ role in limiting the impact of the OPR report was whether he was being “partisan” (in a GOP vs. Democratic way). Alternatively, was he simply protecting his agency from potentially grievous criticism, regardless of whether it came from the left or right? Or was he corrupting the standards government lawyers should be held to and enabling the corruption of our laws and our government?
There is a chorus of non-FDL responses to those questions. Jack Balkin’s, Justice Department Will Not Punish Yoo and Bybee Because Most Lawyers Are Scum Anyway, is a good primer, as is Dahlia Lithwick’s, Torture Bored: How we’ve erased the legal lines around torture and replaced them with nothing. For more pointed criticism, there is, The Margolis Memo, by Scott Horton; David Margolis is Wrong, by David Luban, and The OPR Report: this era’s “Hiroshima”, by James Fallows.
The linked sources cite to the Margolis memo itself, to the lengthy OPR report, and to criticism in support of it. Marcy Wheeler’s, We all benefited” from Margolis’ tenure, cites the most recent praise for Margolis: a letter from “a bunch of former DOJ bigwigs”, most of whom were involved with or benefited from (obtained lucratively non-DoJ employment or stayed out of jail) Yoo and Bybee’s authorization of torture and Margolis’ “reserve” in characterizing its consequences.
But this is Sunday. It’s time for the comics section, or at least the tradmed’s talking heads. They are often funnier if less informative than Jon Stewart. So here, with apologies to Yes, Minister, is my caricature of Mr. Margolis – and his peers at other federal agencies:
The Art of the Master Bureaucrat
The art of being an apolitical master bureaucrat – Bureaucratus maximus, a species similar to but which does not interbreed with Cheney gofuckyourselfis – is to be apolitical.
Bureaucratus‘ chief attribute is to be able to read the tea leaves, anticipate the tide, forecast the approach and direction of the political storm and to go with the flow as if another priority, a contrary practice or a set of facts never existed and could not possibly exist.
As with other highly adaptable species – such as the Partner romanticus that means absolutely, positively everything they say (just not for very long) – Bureaucratus anticipates what their bosses want and provides it with glee, leaving the limelight to others. It avoids the highest offices and formal rewards, preferring the underbrush and the leavings of top predators. Change the boss or priorities and its glee remains, but Bureaucratus produces different droppings, as if an elk had become a goose, a trait that makes tracking them through their dense habitats frustrating.
Bureaucratus is a master of the informal and the arcane. It knows by heart the paths others follow (without themselves being aware of it) and the associations they make as they travel, mate and forage or hunt. It can see the connections as if they were lit threads, which makes its own tracking ability formidable.
The crisscross and doublecross are Bureaucratus‘ usual means of interaction with others, but never with the boss, an exception most bosses confuse with direct and honest dealing. Its habitat is any large bureaucracy or other jungle. Unlike a host of endangered species – examples of Attorney honestus and Congresscritter competentus have not been spotted near the Beltway for several seasons – Bureaucratus‘ population is flourishing.
Bureaucratus maximus, especially its expression in Addingtonitis davidicus, has a remarkable ability to memorize the law, without ever learning what it means. To wit:
The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.
– John Locke
Tags: David Margolis, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, OPR, Torture
