Local girl makes good
A lot of people don't realize how closely Monica Goodling is tied to the Harrisburg region. Goodling, of course, is the 34-year-old femme fatale of the U.S. Attorney firing scandal, the aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales who took the Fifth rather than testify to Congress about what she knew regarding the firings. She has been portrayed as a dragon lady, driving career lawyers out of the Justice Department and replacing them with Christian rightists like herself.
Someone out there in blogworld dug up her old web page from her years at Regent University, the Pat Robertson-founded law school in Virginia Beach, and it reveals more of her ties to Harrisburg than have generally been reported to date. Nothing ever dies on the Web--it just gets archived somewhere.
Goodling is from York Haven in York County, born in the Watergate summer of 1973 and part of the same evangelical or fundamentalist Christian subculture that produced the Intelligent Design fiasco in the Dover Area School District. She attended Messiah College in nearby Grantham, Pa., graduating in 1995, and appears to have been the Big Girl on Campus during her four years. Editor of the yearbook, 1992-94, and president of the Student Government Association 1994-95, her senior year.
What I find particularly interesting is that Goodling spent the summers of 1993, 1994, and 1995 working as a lifeguard and swim coach at the West Shore Country Club in Camp Hill, a suburb of Harrisburg known for its old-line Repubican political conservatism. Those were the the early years of the so-called (Newt) Gingrich Revolution, and I wouldn't be surprised if she met people at the country club who helped enlist her as a foot soldier and furthered her career.
Goodling, who has resigned from the Justice Department, doesn't seem destined to escape the headlines anytime soon. Bloggers continue to dig into her background. She very likely was part of George W. Bush's opposition research team--the folks who dig up dirt on the opposing candidate--for the Bush-Gore debates in 2000. There is talk of Congress granting her immunity from prosecution so she can be compelled to testify about what she knows.
Documents which continue to be released by the Justice Department in response to pressure from Congressional Democrats have her in the thick of things. And I'm sure there's more to come.