In "The Fix" today, Chris Cilizza highlights Mitt Romney's "inner circle" including one, Barbara Comstock:
Barbara Comstock: Comstock is a household name inside the Beltway as a former head of the Justice Department's Office of Public Affairs and research director at the Republican National Committee. Comstock rose to prominence as a master of the art of opposition research; in a 2001 profile of Comstock, Post reporter John Mintz wrote that Comstock had "done more than any other GOP operative to skewer Bill Clinton, Al Gore and their congressional allies."Ms. Comstock's was the boss and mentor to Monica "Fifth Amendment" Goodling, we learned from "The Next Hurrah" (thanks to Atrios):
" 2002 ... 2002 ... What happened in 2002? Well, for starters, that's when Monica Goodling came over to DOJ with Barbara Comstock:What does Mitt Romney's top adviser, Barbara Comstock, know about the U.S. Attorneys firings? And, what did Comstock do to politicize the Department of Justice? Maybe Mitt should explain how he'll run the DOJ.Goodling quickly won Comstock’s trust for her hard work and talent for digging up information on tort litigation and judicial nominations. And when Griffin left in 2001, Goodling became Comstock’s deputy. They helped prepare Ashcroft and Theodore Olson for their confirmation hearings to be attorney general and solicitor general, respectively.
When Comstock became Ashcroft’s spokeswoman in 2002, she brought Goodling along as her deputy. Goodling stayed for three years. In no time, Goodling became “indispensable” to the office, says Corallo, who became Ashcroft’s spokesman in 2003. “I have never known anybody that works harder or does better work than her.”
