A Christian activist chosen by the Bush administration for an AIDS advisory panel withdrew his name under pressure Thursday after criticism of his characterization of the disease as the "gay plague."

Good riddance to Jerry Thacker. But what does this say about the Administration that nominated him in the first place? HHS Director Tommy Thompson's excuse is pitiful:

Thompson said he had never met Thacker and was not familiar with his views until very recently. "When you have this many appointments to make, some controversial ones are going to get through."

Just think-- this team is in charge of judicial nominations, possibly including the next Supreme Court Justice---it makes us cringe.

In 1995, with much ado, the newly Republican-constituted House of Representatives enacted a total ban on receiving gifts from lobbyists. They've been chipping away at it ever since.

This month, in a party line vote, they eroded it even further by passing a new rule that:

...allows lawmakers and their aides to once again accept free trips to golf courses and free meals catered to their offices from corporations and other special interests.

By relaxing the gift ban, Republicans have provided corporations, labor unions and other interest groups many new avenues -- which are closed to ordinary Americans -- to try to influence lawmakers and their staffs. Lobbyists footing the bill often get coveted face time with key lawmakers and their aides.

"As gifts are given, meals are paid for and vacations subsidized, these favors build up and it's just human nature members and staff will be responsive to those doing the favors," said Don Simon, acting president of Common Cause, a nonpartisan group that monitors congressional ethics. "It's not how government business is supposed to be conducted."

Praise, however, is due Colorado Republican Congressman Joel Hefley, who said the rule goes too far:

Now even a key Republican worries that the party is going too far by allowing House members to take free trips to charity events and accept free, catered meals.

"I see my job as to keep people out of trouble," said Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), chairman of the House ethics committee. "We don't want to have the impression, nor the reality, that we're trying to weasel around ways to live high at someone else's expense."

Hefley said he was blindsided earlier this month when Hastert decided to weaken the gift ban without consulting him. At the behest of Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), Hastert drafted what Hefley and others worry might become the biggest loophole in the gift ban yet: allowing members to take all-expense-paid trips to charity fundraising events. The 1995 gift ban outlawed such trips because the practice was routinely abused.

Under the new rule, which passed 221-203, a corporation could anonymously underwrite a charity event on the greens of, say, Pebble Beach in Northern California and provide accommodations at a five-star resort. The corporation then could send its top executives and lobbyists to the event for a weekend of schmoozing with lawmakers.

"That is open to enormous abuse if we are not careful," said Hefley. "I don't want sham charities out there so congressmen have a nice vacation at a resort."

Tom Delay and Dennis Hastert are said to be behind the new rule--for personal reasons--Delay to be able to fly colleagues to "his annual golf tournament in Texas" which raises money for his foundation for foster children. "Scores of corporate lobbyists attend the event." Hastert wants to be able to continue accepting delivered meals from, for example, pharmaceutical firms, on the same night the House is voting on prescription drug legislation. They call this the "pizza rule."

The Republicans are not only creating an appearance of impropriety with this rule, they are providing an opportunity for the impropriety to occur. Where was the media when this rule was proposed and voted on? Was it reported but glossed over with Republican spin? Why are we just hearing the true likely effects of the rule now, after-the-fact?

Media Horse has the latest on Bush's continuing decline in approval ratings. And some praise for CNN's Aaron Brown who told viewers last week that none of the reasons justifying the first Gulf War are present this time around.

Update: My DD notes these are the lowest approval ratings since Bush took over the White House.

A chart of Bush's military record and non-service, prepared by Uggabugga is quite illuminating.

Nathan Newman and Atrios bring us the news that the Department of Justice, under Ashcroft, is hiring law grads based upon ideological (read: right-leaning and conservative) views. Here's Nathan:

The Justice Department has killed civil service hiring of new employees in favor of political appointees screening all new employees for ideological purity.

The focus of the most recent controversy is the "Honors Program" which hires recent law graduates for the Justice Department. The results have been dramatic:

A half-dozen school placement officers said they had noticed a marked shift to the right in the political makeup of students who were approached for interviews this year.

At Columbia University Law School, for example, the head of the campus Federalist Society chapter set a school record by winning interviews at five separate Justice Department divisions, according to public interest law dean Ellen Chapnick. The Federalist Society is a conservative legal group whose membership includes some of the Justice Department's top officials.

Now, it may well be that liberals are less interested in joining a Justice Department of John Ashcroft, but historically both liberals and conservatives have joined the day-to-day enforcement programs of the federal government precisely because they have a reputation for NOT being politicized, except on the more obvious high-profile political hot potatos.

But as with the rest of the federal government, the Bush administration is trying to turn the whole civil service into one massive spoils system rewarding conservative cronies and proteges.

One of the problems with this is that its hard to get rid of civil service employees. For example, the U.S. Attorney's job is a political appointment. When a Republican is elected President following a Democratic Administration (as happened in 2002,) the U.S. Attorneys lose their jobs. But the Assistant U.S. Attorneys under them don't lose their jobs, due to civil service protections.

So doesn't this mean that these recent law-grads with conservative, right-wing ideological bents, can stay in their positions as long as they want, even if and long after the Democrats come back into power. We think so. These Ashcroft appointees can't be fired so long as they are doing their job.

This should get be getting wider attention in the media. Help spread the word.

Thanks to Dan Dodson, Media Director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) for passing this along:

Couldn't get this on line, but The Reliable Source in this morning's Post reports a coffee shop selling a Trent Lotte, which is "separate but equal parts of coffee and milk," served in separate containers, so intergration is left up to the customer. The report says their call to Lott's office was met by "grim silence."

Update: Another thanks to Jason Rylander for posting in the comments that the column is on line, here. Here's the actual bite:

"THIS JUST IN . . .

Bitter brew? For the past couple of weeks, those wags at Kramerbooks & Afterwords Cafe in Dupont Circle have been marketing a beverage called the "Trent Lotte." The menu describes the $3.25 item as "separate but equal parts of coffee and milk" – a not too veiled reference to Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott's career-damaging 100th-birthday praise of fellow Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond's segregationist 1948 presidential campaign. Yesterday bartender Mark Kutcher told us that the coffee and steamed milk are served in two different containers, and it's up to customers to integrate them. "We think it's really funny," Kutcher said. "That's why we do it." But we seriously doubt if Lott is laughing. Our call to the deposed Senate Republican leader's press office yesterday was greeted by grim silence."

Two reasons why Instapundit is not a Republican.

"President Bush said Tuesday that an attack by Saddam Hussein or a terrorist ally "would cripple our economy," offering new justification for potential war against Iraq even as he said North Korea's nuclear ambitions can be curbed without military conflict."

Sorry, Mr. President, but we think the Republicans and your tax cuts for the rich are to blame for the sorry state of our economy. September 11 may have been a big factor, but we've still seen no evidence that Saddam had a hand in that.

Nor have we seen evidence that Iraq is planning an attack. The only person talking about going to war is you--by launching a pre-emptive strike. Maybe if you spent less time obsessing about Iraq and spent some more time with your economic advisors, or picked new advisors, we could begin the climb-out from the hole we're in.

The New York Times reports that Democrats are tossing around ideas to help them catch-up in the media game. Top among their priorities is combatting Fox News Channel on tv, and finding a liberal host who can give Rush Limbaugh a run for his money.

"...concerns have taken on a new urgency because of the rise to the top of the cable news ratings by the Fox News Channel, considered by many to have a conservative slant, and the loss of the Senate to the Republicans in November. Some Democrats say the election outcome enhanced the influence of Fox News and personalities like Mr. Limbaugh."

"The efforts among influential Democrats, particularly liberals, range from a grass-roots talent search for progressive radio hosts to the creation of research organizations to provide a Democratic spin for the news media, to nascent discussions by wealthy supporters about starting a cable network with a liberal bent."

We nominate Atrios.

We just took the Libertarian test that we found on Radley Balko's The Agitator, and here are the results:

"You would feel most at home in the Southwest region You advocate a large degree of personal freedom and a large degree of government control over the economy. Your neighbors include such folks as Jesse Jackson, Ralph Nader, Hilary Clinton, and Zack de la Rocha of Rage Against the Machine, and may refer to themselves as "liberals," "left-wing liberals," "civil libertarians," "democratic socialists," "egalitarians," or "anarcho-socialists."

We always knew we were to the left of Jesse Jackson.

"A coalition of leading civil rights, religious and labor groups plans to ask the new Senate majority leader, Republican Bill Frist of Tennessee, to translate his party's pledges of inclusiveness into policy changes."

The group wants Frist to:

Oppose five of President Bush's 15 federal judicial nominees who were left in limbo when Congress adjourned in November: Charles Pickering of Mississippi; Priscilla Owen of Texas; Carolyn Kuhl of California; Terrence Boyle of North Carolina and Jeffrey Sutton of Ohio. They have "records of deep hostility to core civil rights principles," the Leadership Conference contended. Supporters of the five say they are being opposed because they are conservative.

Support legislation that would encourage federal investigations and prosecutions of hate crimes — acts believed to have been prompted by race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or disability. Most Senate Republicans have opposed the hate-crimes legislation on the grounds that all violent crimes are heinous, regardless of the motivation.

Support funds for election reform. In October, Bush signed legislation that requires states to improve their voting procedures. So far, however, none of the $3.8 billion needed has been approved. "That's a real betrayal of a commitment," Henderson said.

And isn't this reassuring...."But Frist will also be getting an earful from Republican colleagues, some of whom already have said the Lott incident should not change the party's legislative priorities. "It will not alter the agenda," Sen. George Allen of Virginia, a member of the GOP Senate leadership team, said last week."

President Bush has granted seven pardons --the first of his administration. Almost all were for minor offenses. Here's who got pardoned:

"A Mississippi man who tampered with a car odometer; a postal employee who stole $10.90 worth of mail; a Tennessee man sentenced in 1962 for making untaxed whiskey; an Oregon man convicted in 1966 in a grain-theft conspiracy; an Iowa man sentenced in 1989 for lying to the Social Security Administration; a Washington state man sentenced in 1972 for stealing $38,000 worth of copper wire; and a Wisconsin minister who refused to be inducted into the military, sentenced in 1957."

Out of all the people who applied, these are the only people worthy of Bush's compassion? He doesn't deserve to use the word.

The Washington Post feels the same way, but phrases it much more charitably:

"The federal inmate population today is larger than it has ever been; the role of pardons should be bigger than ever. Yet Mr. Bush could not find a single inmate who deserved clemency. By issuing an average of 3.5 pardons a year -- none of which carries consequence other than forgiveness for individuals who long ago served their time -- he announces, in effect, that the American justice system requires no check, just a Christmas card."