We should not be surprised, in this final year of the George W. Bush presidency, that the reputation of the Justice Department has reached a low point. For a long time now, the president’s party has had the odd tic of projecting its own intentions onto its political enemies, and it seems to project most intensely those desires it holds most dear. For instance, Republicans have decried the “big government” tendencies of “nanny state” liberals, even as they themselves have massively expanded the scope of the federal government. And they have been vocal about perceived Democratic legal perfidy. Indeed,…