From: Gary Britt 

That's far from all they wrote Rich you no better than that.  The very
first thing they wrote was a snide bigoted comment about a private
religious law school class saying a brief prayer.  That's got nothing to do
with anything except anti-religious, anti-Christian bigotry.  The article
had a couple of facts, many factual errors and a ton of bigotry.  Not worth
the read.

Gary

Rich Gauszka wrote:
> So to report the grant of preferences to a lowest rank tier 4 school smacks
> of religious bigotry? If you read the article in it's entirety it did
> mention that Regent has improved it's standards since 1999 ( Gooding's
> class ) where 60 % failed the bar exam ( 71% now pass ) .
>
> I agree that not all those that graduate from a 'prestigious' university are
> the best and the brightest - George W Bush comes to mind
>
> "Gary Britt" 
wrote in message
> news:464b7251$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>> There are so many anti-religious, anti-Christian bigoted statements and
>> attempted slurs in this article that it is not possible to any part of it
>> seriously, unless one's own bigotry predisposes them to agree with the
>> slurs and bigotry contained in the article.
>>
>> 1.  First it starts out by attempting to say by implication that prayer in
>> a religious private law school means something bad about the students in
>> that school.  Time to stop reading really right there.
>>
>> 2.  It states Monica Goodling worked at DOJ when that is false.  She
>> worked at the WHITEHOUSE and was liaison from the whitehouse to DOJ.
>>
>> 3.  It states as though it were fact that if you don't have prosecutorial
>> experience you can't have anything to do with evaluating statistics that
>> measure performance criteria and aren't qualified to evaluate whether a
>> person is following policy directives set by the head of the executive
>> branch.  Then it goes on to imply that graduates from a different school
>> that doesn't pray but have absolutely no more prosecutorial experience are
>> qualified to do these things.
>>
>> 4.  It states by implication that a person from Harvard is more qualified
>> for government work than a person from another University, and argues we
>> should let the Harvard/Yale sycophants hire only other socio-economic
>> bigots and religion hating atheists from the same in bred left wing
>> academies from which they were spawned.
>>
>> 5.  Similar articles have appeared recently complaining that somebody who
>> was a member of the conservative federalist society was hired and he
>> didn't come from Harvard but came from the University of Kentucky.  Oh my
>> god!  The horrors.  I hope he didn't once hang up on somebody without
>> saying good bye like John Bolton.  Then there was another recent complaint
>> about somebody who was hired from a school other than Harvard or Yale who
>> actually kept a bust of James Madison (author of many of the federalist
>> papers) in his office instead of the mandatory Karl Marx bust.  Ok I made
>> up the Karl Marx part, but they really complained the guy wasn't qualified
>> because he thought highly of James Madison (Madison is of course a
>> favorite of the federalist society lawyers and that alone is a
>> disqualification to DOJ service to the likes of the bigots like the author
>> of this useless crap you linked to and quoted from.
>>
>> 6. God forbid the DOJ should have people in it that wouldn't give a
>> cover-up sweetheart deal to Sandy Berger and then not even enforce the
>> terms of that sweetheart deal by not requiring him to take a lie detector
>> test that he agreed to take to detail what he stole, what he destroyed,
>> and what information was in the materials he stole and destroyed that have
>> been permanently kept from the 9/11 commission and the American people.
>> Yes it was those kinds of career civil servants in the DOJ that should
>> determine who is hired at DOJ.
>>
>> The DOJ and much of the shadow government known as the federal bureaucracy
>> needs are sharp kick in the ass out the door.  I think everyone under
>> Gonzales and above Janitor at DOJ should be fired immediately.  The place
>> wreaks from decades of inbreeding and incest of type this moron you cite
>> argues should be the norm in perpetuity.
>>
>> Gary
>>
>> Rich Gauszka wrote:
>>> From Oral Roberts University?
>>>
>>>
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2007/04/08/scandal_put
s_spotlight_on_christian_law_school/
>>>
>>> VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- The title of the course was Constitutional Law,
>>> but the subject was sin. Before any casebooks were opened, a student led
>>> his classmates in a 10-minute devotional talk, completed with
"amens,"
>>> about the need to preserve their Christian values.
>>>
>>> "Sin is so appealing because it's easy and because it's
fun," the law
>>> student warned.
>>> Regent University School of Law, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson
>>> to provide "Christian leadership to change the
world," has worked hard in
>>> its two-decade history to upgrade its reputation, fighting past years
>>> when a majority of its graduates couldn't pass the bar exam and leading
>>> up to recent victories over Ivy League teams in national law student
>>> competitions.
>>>
>>> But even in its darker days, Regent has had no better friend than the
>>> Bush administration. Graduates of the law school have been
among the most
>>> influential of the more than 150 Regent University alumni hired to
>>> federal government positions since President Bush took office in 2001,
>>> according to a university website.
>>>
>>> One of those graduates is Monica Goodling , the former top aide to
>>> Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who is at the center of the storm over
>>> the firing of US attorneys. Goodling, who resigned on Friday, has become
>>> the face of Regent overnight -- and drawn a harsh spotlight to the
>>> administration's hiring of officials educated at smaller, conservative
>>> schools with sometimes marginal academic reputations.
>>>
>>> Documents show that Goodling, who has asserted her Fifth Amendment right
>>> against self-incrimination to avoid testifying before Congress, was one
>>> of a handful of officials overseeing the firings. She helped install
>>> Timothy Griffin , the Karl Rove aide and her former boss at the
>>> Republican National Committee, as a replacement US attorney in Arkansas.
>>>
>>> Because Goodling graduated from Regent in 1999 and has scant
>>> prosecutorial experience, her qualifications to evaluate the performance
>>> of US attorneys have come under fire. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse,
>>> Democrat of Rhode Island, asked at a hearing: "Should we
be concerned
>>> with the experience level of the people who are making these highly
>>> significant decisions?"
>>>
>>> And across the political blogosphere, critics have held up Goodling, who
>>> declined to be interviewed, as a prime example of the Bush
administration
>>> subordinating ability to politics in hiring decisions.
>>>
>>> "It used to be that high-level DOJ jobs were generally
reserved for the
>>> best of the legal profession," wrote a contributor to The
New Republic
>>> website . ". . . That a recent graduate of one of the
very worst (and
>>> sketchiest) law schools with virtually no relevant experience could
>>> ascend to this position is a sure sign that there is something seriously
>>> wrong at the DOJ."
>>>
>>> The Regent law school was founded in 1986, when Oral Roberts University
>>> shut down its ailing law school and sent its library to Robertson's
>>> Bible-based college in Virginia. It was initially called
"CBN University
>>> School of Law" after the televangelist's Christian
Broadcasting Network,
>>> whose studios share the campus and which provided much of the
funding for
>>> the law school. (The Coors Foundation is also a donor to the
university.)
>>> The American Bar Association accredited Regent 's law school in 1996.
>>>
>>> Not long ago, it was rare for Regent graduates to join the federal
>>> government. But in 2001, the Bush administration picked the dean of
>>> Regent's government school, Kay Coles James , to be the director of the
>>> Office of Personnel Management -- essentially the head of
human resources
>>> for the executive branch. The doors of opportunity for government jobs
>>> were thrown open to Regent alumni.
>>>
>>> "We've had great placement," said Jay Sekulow , who
heads a non profit
>>> law firm based at Regent that files lawsuits aimed at lowering barriers
>>> between church and state. "We've had a lot of people in
key positions."
>>>
>>> Many of those who have Regent law degrees, including Goodling,
joined the
>>> Department of Justice. Their path to employment was further
eased in late
>>> 2002, when John Ashcroft , then attorney general, changed longstanding
>>> rules for hiring lawyers to fill vacancies in the career ranks.
>>>
>>> Previously, veteran civil servants screened applicants and recommended
>>> whom to hire, usually picking top students from elite schools.
>>>
>>> In a recent Regent law school newsletter, a 2004 graduate
described being
>>> interviewed for a job as a trial attorney at the Justice Department's
>>> Civil Rights Division in October 2003. Asked to name the Supreme Court
>>> decision from the past 20 years with which he most disagreed, he cited
>>> Lawrence v. Texas, the ruling striking down a law against sodomy because
>>> it violated gay people's civil rights.
>>>
>>> "When one of the interviewers agreed and said that
decision in Lawrence
>>> was 'maddening,' I knew I correctly answered the
question," wrote the
>>> Regent graduate . The administration hired him for the Civil Rights
>>> Division's housing section -- the only employment offer he
received after
>>> graduation, he said.
>>>
>>> The graduate from Regent -- which is ranked a "tier
four" school by US
>>> News & World Report, the lowest score and essentially a
tie for 136th
>>> place --  was not the only lawyer with modest credentials to be hired by
>>> the Civil Rights Division after the administration imposed greater
>>> political control over career hiring.
>>>
>>> The changes resulted in a sometimes dramatic alteration to the
profile of
>>> new hires beginning in 2003, as the Globe reported last year after
>>> obtaining resumes from 2001-2006 to three sections in the civil rights
>>> division. Conservative credentials rose, while prior experience in civil
>>> rights law and the average ranking of the law school attended by the
>>> applicant dropped.
>>>
>>> As the dean of a lower-ranked law school that benefited from the Bush
>>> administration's hiring practices, Jeffrey Brauch of Regent made no
>>> apologies in a recent interview for training students to understand what
>>> the law is today, and also to understand how legal rules should be
>>> changed to better reflect "eternal principles of
justice," from divorce
>>> laws to abortion rights
>>>
>>> We anticipate that many of our graduates are going to go and be change
>>> agents in society," Brauch said.
>>>
>>> Still, Brauch said, the recent criticism of the law school triggered by
>>> Goodling's involvement in the US attorney firings has missed the mark in
>>> one respect: the quality of the lawyers now being turned out by the
>>> school, he argued, is far better than its image.
>>>
>>> Seven years ago, 60 percent of the class of 1999 -- Goodling's class --
>>> failed the bar exam on the first attempt. (Goodling's
performance was not
>>> available, though she is admitted to the bar in Virginia.) The dismal
>>> numbers prompted the school to overhaul its curriculum and tighten
>>> admissions standards.
>>>
>>> It has also spent more heavily to recruit better-qualified law students.
>>> This year, it will spend $2.8 million on scholarships, a million more
>>> than what it was spending four years ago.
>>>
>>> The makeover is working. The bar exam passage rate of Regent alumni ,
>>> according to the Princeton Review, rose to 67 percent last year. Brauch
>>> said it is now up to 71 percent, and that half of the students admitted
>>> in the late 1990s would not be accepted today. The school has also
>>> recently won moot-court and negotiation competitions, beating out teams
>>> from top-ranked law schools.
>>>
>>> Adding to Regent's prominence, its course on "Human Rights, Civil
>>> Liberties, and National Security" is co taught by one of its newest
>>> professors: Ashcroft.
>>>
>>> Even a prominent critic of the school's mission of integrating the Bible
>>> with public policy vouches for Regent's improvements. Barry Lynn , the
>>> head of the liberal Americans United for the Separation of Church and
>>> State, said Regent is churning out an increasingly well-trained legal
>>> army for the conservative Christian movement.
>>>
>>> "You can't underestimate the quality of a lot of the
people that are
>>> there," said Lynn, who has guest-lectured at Regent and debated
>>> professors on its campus.
>>>
>>> In light of Regent's rapid evolution, some current law
students say it is
>>> frustrating to be judged in light of Regent alumni from the
school's more
>>> troubled era -- including Goodling.
>>>
>>> One third-year student, Chamie Riley , said she rejected the idea that
>>> any government official who invokes her Fifth Amendment right against
>>> self-incrimination could be a good representative of Regent.
>>>
>>> As Christians, she said, Regent students know "you should
be morally
>>> upright. You should not be in a situation where you have to plead the
>>> Fifth."
>>>
>>>
>

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