Gonzales Kills McNulty’s Credibility on McNulty’s Way Out the Door

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Yesterday, when Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty resigned, Alberto Gonzales had nothing but nice things to say about his top assistant. Gonzo called McNulty a “dynamic and thoughtful leader” and said McNulty is “an outstanding public servant and a fine attorney who has been valued here at the Department… On behalf of the Department, I wish him well in his future endeavors.”

Wrong! Today, Gonzales threw McNulty under a bus in a big way. Speaking at the National Press Club, Gonzales said this morning, “You have to remember, at the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the deputy attorney general. He signed off on the names… And he would know better than anyone else, anyone in this room, anyone — again, the deputy attorney general would know best about the qualifications and the experiences of the United States attorneys community, and he signed off on the names.”

Good luck finding employment, Paul! Go ahead and put “Fall Guy for Major DOJ Embarrassment” at the top of your resume.

Washington can be so vicious, can’t it?

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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