As usual, the most revealing thing about the report from the inspector general of the Department of Justice that the enforcement of federal law had been pretty much turned into a young Republican career opportunity – the report that found the department had violated its own rules and federal law by evaluating job applicants based on their feelings on “god, guns + gays” – was the White House’s response to it.

Deep into the news reports, you could find Tony Fratto, a White House spokesman, commenting, “There really is not a lot new here.”

Not, “Gee, we’re sorry we debased a longtime tradition that the government hires its enforcement-level lawyers based on what they know about the law, not whether they fall asleep at night dreaming of George W. Bush.”

Not, “Actually, we’ve found that a young lawyer’s attitude toward gays is a pretty clear indication of how well she understands Chapter 47 of the Code of Federal Regulations.”

Not even the ever-popular, “Can you believe how those low-level folks doing the hiring got carried away? Boy, were we surprised.”

Not even a simple, attempt-at-a-straight-face, at-least-we-could-work-up-some-hypocrisy pretense that the White House was taking this report at all seriously, that the administration thought there was any problem in Googling applicants for immigration judgeships to see what they thought of the 2000 Florida recount. Just a shoulder-shrugging, semi-sneering “So what?” – the kind of thing you might hear from a sharkskin-suited defense mouthpiece in old mob movies.

Actually, the report with the catchy title “An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General” has a lot of interesting, not widely known material. Its title character, Goodling, was ideally cast for giving or denying approval to department hirings – a young graduate of Messiah College, Regents University Law School (Pat Robertson, president and chancellor) and, most importantly, three years at the Republican National Committee before becoming one of the highest-ranking figures in the Department of Justice.

As the report notes, the Department of Justice has a few political appointees and a large number of career employees, and “both Department policy and federal law prohibit discrimination in hiring for Department career positions on the basis of political affiliation.” Last year, Goodling girlishly confided to the House Judiciary Committee that there “were times I crossed the line,” but the report suggests she was far too modest.

She would try to ask applicants for all positions the same questions, such as “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?” Assuming that a candidate didn’t reply that he didn’t think that was the job description for an immigration appeals judge, Goodling might ask what other Republicans the applicant admired.

That could be a trick question; when one candidate mentioned Condoleezza Rice, Goodling objected that Rice was pro-choice. These folks were running a Justice Department where the secretary of state couldn’t pass the loyalty test.

Still, you couldn’t be too careful. The report describes Goodling’s filling a position on the department’s national counterterrorism detail, a job requiring terrorism experience and at least five years experience as a prosecutor. The leading candidate had been an assistant U.S. attorney since 1987, was chief of the anti-terrorism unit in his office, had worked with two anti-terrorism task forces and “had successfully prosecuted a high-level terrorism case for which he had received the Attorney General’s Award for Exceptional Service.”

On the other hand, his wife was a prominent local Democrat. The candidate who got the job had no terrorism background and only two years as an assistant U.S. attorney, but was a reliable Republican.

It’s a good thing we’re not in a war on terror.

Um, wait a second.

So when the White House spokesman shrugs about the report, “There really is not a lot new here,” it’s not the most heartening answer. But we at least know he would have done better with the question, “What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?”