Mukasey's order sends the case back to the Board of Immigration Appeals, which, one hopes, will not act like complete assholes the second time around. Mukasey pointed out that female genital mutilation can, indeed, be inflicted more than once — making the ruling factually wrong — and that further persecution need not take the same form as the initial persecution to qualify the woman for asylum. So, the Bush Administration finally did something right... only, actually, it's all their fault in the first place.

Because, lest you forget, the immigration court judges are some of the many people Alberto Gonzales's minions — Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson — helped get onto the bench based on a thorough vetting of their loyalty to George W. Bush and a not so thorough vetting of their immigration law background. In fact, many of them had no immigration law qualifications whatsoever when they began to serve as immigration judges. Some had previously attempted to get non-immigration judgeships and failed, due to a lack of qualifications in the field of law they'd actually practiced, but Gonzales, Goodling and Sampson ran the immigration court appointment process with little attention to pesky details like that. In fact, when they were running the immigration courts as a loyalty-reward outlet center, only 4 seats on the immigration courts were open to a competitive application process. Studies have shown that those who were hired while the Three Musketeers were at the helm (most of whom remain on the bench) are significantly more likely to reject asylum applications than judges hired under competitive application processes that actually have an immigration law background.

So, really, Mukasey wasn't doing anything more than he was hired to do — which is clean up the shit at the Justice Department that Alberto Gonzles, left behind. So, hooray for doing the right thing, eventually and under pressure from Congress! At least this asylum seeker will get to stay. The other ones the Bushies have been busy deporting, well, good luck to them.

AG: Don't Deport Genital Mutilation Victim [CNN]
Genital Mutilation Victim Gets A New Chance At Asylum In U.S. [LA Times]
Immigration Judges Lack Apt Backgrounds [LA Times]
Immigration Judges Often Picked Based On GOP Ties [Washington Post]
Vetted Judges More Likely to Reject Asylum Bids [NY Times]

• Nancy Pelosi said aloud today what everyone knows implicitly and no one ever acknowledges: when the right-wingers talk about "San Francisco values," they're condemning San Franciscans for not spitting on the LGBT community with a wink and a nod. Tolerance is so for liberals. [HuffPo]
• Speaking of the intolerance of the right, an inspector general's report has unsurprisingly concluded that Monica Goodling and Kyle Sampson inappropriately used political considerations when hiring at the Justice Department. Goodling asked interviewees what they liked most about Bush, what their stances on abortion were and, in one case, refused to renew a prosecutor's appointment believing him to be gay or at least, very metrosexual. Hey, it was 2006, that phrase was still acceptable! [Washington Post]

• Not to dwell on Bushies, but, um, one of them called the Iraq War "fucking stupid." He helped design a counterinsurgency strategy that relied on more than boots on the ground that we've partially ignored, but he is an Aussie after all. That accent doesn't translate well into "Texan." [Washington Independent]
• What translates a little easier is a McCain adviser promising conservatives that McCain won't really push a greenhouse gas plan because candidates always promise stuff they won't deliver on. Here's hoping he says that about McCain, oh, another couple of hundred times between now and November. [Think Progress]
• Hillary Clinton's totally hitting the trail for Obama once she gets done catching up in the Senate, Terry McAuliffe swears. And he's, like, totally reliable. [CNN]
• John McCain had another mole removed today, which reminds us to always wear sunscreen and that John McCain is really old. [CNN, John McCain Is Really Old]
• Obama is reportedly seriously vetting Virginia Governor Tim "not Mc" Kaine for the VP slot, but Tim just makes us wonder what is up with the eyebrows of Virginia's past 3 governors. They're really bushy and strange. It is becoming a great way to handicap the Governor's race down there, though. [Washington Post]

So is it too predictable to point out here that no women's magazine would ever or probably will ever be a disillusioned military commander's chosen outlet for airing grievances with his or her superiors in the hegemony? Is it too broken record-y of me to point out one more time that women's magazines are such a fucking joke the most powerful woman in America stood up an interviewer hailing from the most famous one of them? That they are such a fucking joke she worried her fluffy, pointless coverage by one — in a year her fiercest opponent got his most impressive poll bounce from Oprah — would be damaging to her campaign? That it would make her look foolish and yet elitist? I wanted this post to be a lighthearted recommendation of some powerful women Glamour and Cosmo should start lobbying to resign. How awesome would it be if Cosmo finally snagged Condi? If Self got Monica Goodling? Ha ha ha, yeah, it would be awesome only to us, because those magazines are crap. Even ELLE, which is a pretty decent magazine, is so far from claiming this sort of influence it is PITIFUL. And what's the problem? Women's magazines simply make too much money. Esquire is allowed to break even. JANE was folded for not growing its profits briskly enough. Anyway, I am grumpy. Can you tell I just took my meds? I'm totally going to cheer myself up now by writing a fake Monica Goodling profile for Cosmo.

Making declarative statements is kind of intimidating. It's a lot easier to say "Um, I'd like to talk about our annual report today," than "I'd like to talk about our annual report today.

Apparently an "um" really changes things! But, seriously: If, as Naomi Wolf intimated in the Washington Post yesterday, the childlike behavior exhibited by certain women is some deep-seated attempt to reassure the world of their vulnerability and femininity, who exactly is pushing them to do so? Other women? Or the same type of men who criticize someone like Hillary Clinton for being nakedly ambitious and "shrill"? We're curious here, people. Weigh in, in the comments.

Professional Women? With Little-Girl Voices? [Marketplace]
Related: The Image Of Helplessness [WashingtonPost]
Little Girl Voices On Grown Women [WSJ]