The Department of Justice has redesigned its website and eliminated all that patriotic schlock from the past, including the stars and stripes motif that has been replaced by a sophisticated black background. The American Spectator has the story:
“We were told that the media team and the senior leadership that signed off on the design thought that the patriotic shtick from the Ashcroft days was a bit much for an agency that isn’t supposed to be political,” says a DOJ lawyer, who inquired about the redesign. “It was a real effort not to laugh at that.”
Prominent now on the site are links to “Justice.gov en Español” and the “The Recovery Act and the Department of Justice.” But most jarring is the quote that is appears on virtually every page of the website. “The common law is the will of mankind issuing from the life of the people,” which, some DOJ staff say, is tied to a man who ushered in the socialist and communist theories that now permeate the United Nations….
Suggestions to highlight quotes from the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights or quotes from the Founders, the Federalist Papers or prominent American jurists were quickly shot down by the Department of Justice’s media and new media teams, according to DOJ sources familiar with the design process, and the White House communications shop was given input to the overall design as well.
The quote, which some had thought is from William Blackstone, the author of the authoritative texts on English law, is actually from C. Wilfred Jenks, an FDR-era advocate of international law-you know, law is not rooted in our history or system of government.