Quote of the Day: The Distinction Between "Illegal" and "Criminal"

On his decision not to prosecute Monica Goodling and other Justice Department officials who illegally restricted career positions to Republican cronies (via NYTimes):

“Where there is enough evidence to charge someone with a crime, we vigorously prosecute,” he said. “But not every wrong, or even every violation of the law, is a crime,” he said. As the inspector general’s report acknowledged, the hiring violations were such a case, because the wrongdoing violated federal civil service law, but not criminal law, he said.

Let's reduce this to syllogism form.

P1: Major Premise.The politically-motivated violation of civil service law constitutes a violation of everything we hold dear, as well as the basic anti-corruption and anti-fraud laws I would be seriously astounded if we did not have right now.

P2: Minor Premise. It is inconsistent with federal civil service law to apply a political litmus test when filling career positions in the civil service, i.e. the Justice Department.

P3: Fact. Attorney General Michael Mukasey will not prosecute the people who committed these "non-crime violations."

C3: Michael Mukasey is also a partisan tool and is committing an offense to ethics, if not to law (this syllogism is leading me to lose my faith in law).

Correct me if I'm wrong on P1; I really do hope I am, because I'd rather think the code of the law itself is incomplete (despite its obvious suggestion of the question, "WTF were the Civil Service reforms good for, then?"), rather than become depressed over the apparent lack of importance it has for our government.

Joe Lieberman on Mukasey

"I can't think of a nominee for Attorney General who has been more independent of the president nominating him than Michael Mukasey in a long, long time," Lieberman said.

So, because the President would actively support waterboarding of people on the street to encourage them to tell him where the best pizza joint is, whereas Mukasey would just maybe tickle the guy while Bush dripped water down his throat, they're now independent of each other? What less-independent nominee might Lieberman have in mind by way of contrast? A petri dish of Bush's cheek cells?

Above: So dependent on the President, they can't even live outside of the warm confines of his mouth.