The prospective Bush administration is off to a blazing start, but the heat and light this week are generated by the Linda Chavez nomination going down in flames. At what was probably the last press conference of her political career, the now-defunct nominee for labor secretary portrayed herself as a victim of head-hunting politics, predicting that the treatment she received will discourage good people from volunteering for public service.
That may be true, maybe not. Linda Chavez’s resume is not that of a dedicated public servant, it’s one of a political golddigger. She jumped on the Democratic-union bandwagon in the early 70s, the years of Nixon’s disgrace, but allowed the strong wind of the Reagan Revolution to blow her 180 degrees, into an anti-union Republican.
Born in New Mexico, raised in Denver, she attended the University of Colorado, then defaulted on her college loans for a decade and only paid them off when they were uncovered during her Reagan administration tenure. At the time she was running the civil rights commission as a dispensary of graft to Republicans opposed to civil rights.
The hallmark of Bush family politics, it is said, is loyalty. If you’re loyal to them, they’ll be loyal to you, but you have to be loyal first. It is now clear Linda Chavez knew Marta Mercado was an illegal immigrant from the day they met, but she misled the FBI, the press and her new boss, and while Ms. Chavez called a former neighbor weeks ago to get her story straight, George W. knew nothing about the housekeeper situation until last weekend.
Not that Linda Chavez is the greatest of W’s problems. He’s got the outgoing Bill Clinton signing executive orders on everything under the sun, from roadless areas in national forests to creating new national monuments, all with an eye toward putting Mr. Bush on the spot when he finally gets the keys to the Oval Office. Then there’s Alan Greenspan, dropping interest rates last week, simultaneously blindsiding the president-elect and stealing the business page headlines from the Austin economic forum, which is just as well anyway. When George W. Bush and a bunch of corporate leaders disappear behind closed doors, you know it won’t be good news for Joe Six-Pack. It’s time to pay the piper for last year’s record-setting campaign fundraising.
Speaking of paying pipers and campaign fundraising, George W’s worst friend, John McCain, has decided it’s payback time. Late last winter, in the South Carolina primary, the Bush campaign dragged Senator McCain’s family, patriotism and character through the gutter. They questioned his sanity, his loyalty and his temperament. Now it’s John McCain’s turn. I think Senator McCain truly believes in campaign finance reform. He thinks it will be a good thing for America, and I agree. Campaign finance is, however, also a very sharp weapon and Mr. McCain has lodged it in Mr. Bush’s political ribcage. Now he will twist and twist until his bill is signed or the Bush administration has lost a gallon of blood.
What goes around comes around – it’s true for presidential administrations and the people in them, or the people who want to be in them and can’t. Linda Chavez stood at her podium Tuesday and blamed “the politics of personal destruction.” This from a woman who opposes affirmative action and the minimum wage. Not an increase in the minimum wage, the whole concept of a minimum wage. How many people would be destroyed by that? And all for the sake of a political career that ultimately wound up going nowhere.
Search and Destroy
The prospective Bush administration is off to a blazing start, but the heat and light this week are generated by the Linda Chavez nomination going down in flames. At what was probably the last press conference of her political career, the now-defunct nominee for labor secretary portrayed herself as a victim of head-hunting politics, predicting that the treatment she received will discourage good people from volunteering for public service.
That may be true, maybe not. Linda Chavez’s resume is not that of a dedicated public servant, it’s one of a political golddigger. She jumped on the Democratic-union bandwagon in the early 70s, the years of Nixon’s disgrace, but allowed the strong wind of the Reagan Revolution to blow her 180 degrees, into an anti-union Republican.
Born in New Mexico, raised in Denver, she attended the University of Colorado, then defaulted on her college loans for a decade and only paid them off when they were uncovered during her Reagan administration tenure. At the time she was running the civil rights commission as a dispensary of graft to Republicans opposed to civil rights.
The hallmark of Bush family politics, it is said, is loyalty. If you’re loyal to them, they’ll be loyal to you, but you have to be loyal first. It is now clear Linda Chavez knew Marta Mercado was an illegal immigrant from the day they met, but she misled the FBI, the press and her new boss, and while Ms. Chavez called a former neighbor weeks ago to get her story straight, George W. knew nothing about the housekeeper situation until last weekend.
Not that Linda Chavez is the greatest of W’s problems. He’s got the outgoing Bill Clinton signing executive orders on everything under the sun, from roadless areas in national forests to creating new national monuments, all with an eye toward putting Mr. Bush on the spot when he finally gets the keys to the Oval Office. Then there’s Alan Greenspan, dropping interest rates last week, simultaneously blindsiding the president-elect and stealing the business page headlines from the Austin economic forum, which is just as well anyway. When George W. Bush and a bunch of corporate leaders disappear behind closed doors, you know it won’t be good news for Joe Six-Pack. It’s time to pay the piper for last year’s record-setting campaign fundraising.
Speaking of paying pipers and campaign fundraising, George W’s worst friend, John McCain, has decided it’s payback time. Late last winter, in the South Carolina primary, the Bush campaign dragged Senator McCain’s family, patriotism and character through the gutter. They questioned his sanity, his loyalty and his temperament. Now it’s John McCain’s turn. I think Senator McCain truly believes in campaign finance reform. He thinks it will be a good thing for America, and I agree. Campaign finance is, however, also a very sharp weapon and Mr. McCain has lodged it in Mr. Bush’s political ribcage. Now he will twist and twist until his bill is signed or the Bush administration has lost a gallon of blood.
What goes around comes around – it’s true for presidential administrations and the people in them, or the people who want to be in them and can’t. Linda Chavez stood at her podium Tuesday and blamed “the politics of personal destruction.” This from a woman who opposes affirmative action and the minimum wage. Not an increase in the minimum wage, the whole concept of a minimum wage. How many people would be destroyed by that? And all for the sake of a political career that ultimately wound up going nowhere.