News Analysis: Lessons of Swift Exit by Cabinet Choice nytimes.com
The good grey Times weighs in. In case anybody is wondering, this doesn't exactly appear to be a triumph of the "liberal media". Ms. Chavez seems to have mostly shot herself in the foot.
Bush officials, said one Republican close to the transition office here,
were enraged when they learned that Ms. Chavez had withheld
potentially damaging information.
And hour by hour, it seemed, they grew more tepid in their support for
her nomination. They moved from Mr. Bush's less-than-confident-
sounding statement on Monday that she would ultimately be confirmed
by the Senate to a comment this morning from Ari Fleischer, Mr. Bush's
spokesman, that "we are seeking to develop information" about when
Ms. Chavez discovered she was aiding an illegal immigrant.
By the time Ms. Chavez appeared on television this afternoon, she was
accompanied by other immigrants she has helped who spoke up for her.
But no officials of the Bush transition office took the stage in her defense
at her news conference.
Given the attitude during the Reagan administration toward the Sanctuary movement, which sheltered Central American refugees that the Reaganauts wanted to deport back to the right wing death squads, er I mean, "leftists dressed in government uniforms", the Chavez story about "giving shelter" didn't exactly ring true.
Cheers, Dan. |
