Whenever I read about what's going on at the Justice Department I always feel like I'm reading a story in The Onion. Because no matter what they've been doing, you can bet it runs totally counter to the goal of furthering justice -- to an utterly absurd degree.

The latest reason to wonder if the Department of Justice could possibly fail more completely to live up to its name? A report from NPR yesterday that a career attorney at the department who was universally praised for her job performance was let go from her post because of rumors that she was gay.

Here's an excerpt from the print version of the story:

"Several people interviewed by the inspector general's staff described
the case to NPR and said they came away with the impression that the
Attorney General's office decided not to renew Leslie Hagen's contract
because of the talk about her sexual orientation. Hagen received the
highest possible ratings for her work...
Her final job evaluation lists five categories for supervisors to rank
her performance. For each category, a neat X fills the box marked,
"Outstanding." And at the bottom of the page, under "overall rating
level," she also got the top mark: Outstanding."

Another gem to add to the list of Department of Justice injustices. For those of you keeping score at home, that list includes -- among other scandals known and yet-to-be-discovered -- firing attorneys for partisan reasons, penning memos to justify torture, and failing to prosecute civil rights complaints. Would be laughable if it weren't so sad.