How To Find A Liberal Spotted Owl
The California legal blog Legal Pad posted the now-infamous LexisNexis search string that Monica Goodling and her predecessor Jan Williams used to determine the political leanings of Justice Department job candidates, as noted on page 21 of the DOJ report [PDF] on the hiring scandal:
“[first name of a candidate] and pre/2 [last name of a candidate] w/7 bush or gore or republican! or democrat! or charg! or accus! or criticiz! or blam! or defend! or iran contra or clinton or spotted owl or florida recount or sex! or controvers! or racis! or fraud! or investigat! or bankrupt! or layoff! or downsiz! or PNTR or NAFTA or outsourc! or indict! or enron or kerry or iraq or wmd! or arrest! or intox! or fired or sex! or racis! or intox! or slur! or arrest! or fired or controvers! or abortion! or gay! or homosexual! or gun! or firearm!”
If you’ve never used LexisNexis, the exclamation points are used to search for all possible variants on a word. For example, controvers! would find the words controversy and controversial and controversatile. The wonderful side effect is, of course, that the exclamation points make this the most enthusiastic looking violation of federal law ever!
Thanks to raabonte for the link.
