Monica redux

The Mandarin was reminded of the Stepford Wives watching Monica Goodling testify the other day, particularly this exchange:

REP. ROBERT C. SCOTT (D-VA): In your testimony, you indicate that you, quote, "may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions." Do you believe that those political considerations were not just in appropriate but in fact illegal?

MS. GOODLING: That's not a conclusion for me to make. I know I was acting --

REP. SCOTT: Do you believe that they were legal or illegal for you to take those political considerations in mind? Not whether they were legal or illegal. What do you believe? Do you believe that they were illegal?

MS. GOODLING: I don't believe I intended to commit a crime.

REP. SCOTT: Did you break the law? Is it against the law to take those political considerations into account? You've got civil service laws. You've got obstruction of justice with any laws that you could have broken by taking political considerations into account, quote, "on some occasions."

MS. GOODLING: The best I can say is that I know I took political considerations into account on some occasions.

REP. SCOTT: Was that legal?

MS. GOODLING: Sir, I'm not able to answer that question. I know I crossed the line.

REP. SCOTT: What line -- legal?

MS. GOODLING: I crossed the line of the civil service rules.

REP. SCOTT: Rules -- laws? You crossed the line of civil service laws. Is that right?

MS. GOODLING: I believe I crossed the lines, but I didn't mean to.


The Mandarin doesn't know what kind of law they teach at Ms. Goodling's alma mater, wingnut televangelist Pat Robertson's Regent University ("Christian leadership to change the world"), but in admitting to a blatant violation of the law, Ms. Goodling provided a quote the Mandarin's readers should feel free to use the next time they are pulled over for speeding or summoned into the IRS audit room: "I believe I crossed the line, but I didn't mean to."

That one will take its rightful place alongside "The dog ate my homework," and "The Devil made me do it" in the Lame Excuse Hall of Fame.

And no points for guessing the name of the handsome dude on her arm in the photo above.

Update: John Sherffius nails it in a cartoon here.


Cross-posted at The Mandarin.