It's funny, but I didn't quite see Creamie aiding and abetting Sunnie doing a Madame Defarge...
To quote Shmoop:
Her problem, it seems, is that Madame Defarge just doesn’t know where to draw the line. As far as she’s concerned, "justice" for the fate of her family isn’t just that the Marquis gets murdered. Justice should, she thinks, include the "extermination" of all of the Marquis’ family. Given her druthers, Charles, Lucie, and even little Lucie would fall under the sharp blade of La Guillotine. As Madame Defarge exclaims to her husband, "Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!" (3.12.36).
With these words, Madame Defarge ceases to be human. All the other characters recognize her as a sheer force of nature. It’s logical, then, that readers would feel the same way: she evolves into a sort of meeting point of history and social opportunity. As our narrator writes, she is:
imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress. She was absolutely without pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her.
It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself. (3.14.33) [my bold]
What you saw in the Skull's tenure was his influence on CASA, not the influence of the coat-tail tuggers and hangers-on. Those that survive will survive on their merits, not their past complicity and Skates will provide a whole new perspective on the integrity bar that they will have to jump to stay in range of the trough.
On the other hand, no DAS manages in a vacuum and Skates will have to find a path between the needs of Peta Credlin, the Miniscule, MM, the Board, the AGs etc. Not everyone will be happy. He will be assailed by competing industry positions from people of undoubted probity and from outright scoundrels and everywhere in between. Not everyone will be happy.
I happen to think that the overwhelming requirement for the role is character, regardless of where you were trained, tempered and respected. Skates brings that in spades, so check your bile and your narrow personal agendas as well as your unachievable blood lust and give the guy a chance.
Nothing better or worse is going to occur in the short term. He has to identify what is fact and what is noise as well as who he can trust and who he should defend or sacrifice.
CASA doesn't kill people, we do. How we fly, train, supervise and manage is what really controls the risk, so maybe we need to spend a bit more time looking in the mirror when the wheels start looking a little wobbly...
Stay Alive,