1984. That was a very good year.

You just get used to this sort of thing from the Republicans. WaPo yawns, buries the story on A24:

A top Air Force lawyer who served at the White House and in a senior position in Iraq turns out to have been practicing law for 23 years without a license.

Col. Michael D. Murphy was] the general counsel for the White House Military Office from December 2001 to January 2003, and from August 2003 to January 2005. In between those tours, he was the legal adviser to the reconstruction effort in Iraq, an Air Force spokesman said. [He was] was most recently commander of the Air Force Legal Operations Agency at Bolling Air Force Base in the District.

He was relieved of his command at Bolling on Nov. 30 after the Air Force learned that he had been disbarred for professional misconduct in Texas in 1984 but hadn't informed his superiors...

Texas, hmmm?

Interestingly, a Michael D. Murphy of Arlington, VA was paid $38,024 from Tom DeLay's slush fund, Americans for a Republican Majority, in 2002. The same guy?

Remarkably, the JAG system was "integrity based," and required no proof of qualifications. Now that's an accident waiting to happen. I wonder how many other cases like this there are.

NOTE TalkLeft has the chronology here. "Pull a thread and the whole thing falls apart," she remarks. But you know? It doesn't. Why the fuck not?

As usual, imagine if this happened when The Clenis was President.