O’Beirne’s staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade. ~The Washington Post

This is one of those bizarre things that would seem hard to believe, but then you realise which administration we’re talking about here.  There has to be some irony in determining whether staffers being chosen to man the occupation zone in the wake of a war of aggression are sufficiently pro-life.  Was this a question used to ferret out those fiendishly clever Gore-voting staffers who lied about their voting record but couldn’t deny their position on abortion?  Was there a real fear that Democrats would subvert the “ideological struggle”, or was this simply a way of venting the embarrassment that there were not enough qualified people with the right affiliation?  

I wonder if the “loyal” staffers traded notes on their different loyalty tests.  Did they check each other’s answers to find out what it took to score “perfect loyalty”?  Did they have contests to see who was more loyal?  Did they make bets on how loyal the new arrivals would be?  Did they taunt each other in the fastnesses of the Green Zone with little insults like, “I’m more loyal to the Master than you are!  You’re just a pansy who likes the ABM Treaty!”?  Were sufficiently loyal staffers rewarded with an audience with Kate O’Beirne?  Oh, boy, what a reward!

This was one of my more favourite items:

He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience.

Smith said O’Beirne once pointed to a young man’s résumé and pronounced him “an ideal candidate.” His chief qualification was that he had worked for the Republican Party in Florida during the presidential election recount in 2000.

Well, obviously he would disqualify people who spoke Arabic–they might start communicating with the enemy!  Besides, what sort of loser spent his time in school learning Arabic when he could have been an econ major just like the rest of “us”?  And you can’t ever trust an Arabist–I think that’s Rule #43 in the Neoconservative Handbook of Success–because they have something that is called Knowledge About the Near East, which is something that no successful neoconservative should have to bother himself with.

But why should this guy’s involvement in the recount surprise anyone?  A willingness to do what you’re told, no thinking required, make wild claims about adversaries and generally shill for the Master–isn’t that the very definition of what the CPA did?  Besides, you didn’t think this kid spent his time working on the recount in Florida for his health, did you?  Every good deed deserves a payoff, er, reward.  Where better for a young man to get a start than in the Two Rivers Opportunity Zone (a.k.a., Iraq)?