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Politics : War -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (439)	1/10/2001 7:41:50 AM
From: John Carragher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23908

January 10, 2001 Blood in the Water With Linda Chavez now over the side, the blood is in the water. What a spectacle. In most parts of America, a woman who stretched out a hand to a struggling Vietnamese refugee, who paid for the schooling of two Puerto Rican children out of her own pocket and who opened her home to a battered Guatemalan woman without first demanding to see her green card would be held up as an example. That's the difference between most of America and the Beltway, where a Linda Chavez gets reduced to a political scalp. At the press conference announcing her withdrawal as George W. Bush's nominee for Secretary of Labor, Ms. Chavez produced some of the people she has helped over the years, putting a human face to her actions. "What happened [to me] over the last few days," she said, "is quite typical of what happens in Washington, D.C. and typical of what happens in politics." It was a strong, gracious presentation. The pity is that she never had the chance to give it before a full Senate committee. As it is, all it took to get rid of her was a few headlines about how many dishes Marta Mercardo might have washed during her stay at the Chavez home and a threat by Senator Edward Kennedy to use his fluke, interim chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee to run up the Jolly Roger and stage a bonfire on her nomination before a Republican majority was again sworn in. We take it this is Mr. Kennedy's response to the new spirit of bipartisanship that Senate Majority Leader Lott's power-sharing agreement was supposed to usher in. The winner of the moment is the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney and the quota crowd, who have rid themselves of their worst nightmare -- a confident Hispanic woman who knew how to articulate the American dream. They managed this without having to call in a single chit. Now, it's understandable that Bush officials were not pleased to have been handed a Guatemalan surprise. On Monday evening, when Mr. Bush was asked when he learned about Ms. Mercardo, he answered, "last night." Thus was the President-elect faced with a dilemma, in that enforcing the standards of trust and forthrightness he has set for his people meant cutting himself loose from one of his key nominees. The Bush people are no fools. Whatever the talk about this making it easier for John Ashcroft's confirmation as Attorney General, you can bet the Bush team understands that by not making the Democrats fight for her head they have fed the sharks circling the President-elect's other targeted nominees, not to mention his legislative agenda. Look at the players. The neighbor who reported the conflicting account to the FBI, Margaret Zwisler, is a lawyer and registered Democrat. While Ms. Mercardo and Ms. Chavez each answered questions about their relationship, the accuser, Ms. Zwisler, quickly retreated behind her attorney. And what an attorney she found! Neil Eggleston, a former Clinton White House associate counsel who with George Stephanopoulos was part of the Whitewater spin team. And guess which network first reported the case? ABC, Mr. Stephanopolous's new home. Overnight, those who told us that Presidential perjury was no big deal suddenly became sticklers for every jot of immigration law. The response was the "search and destroy" ethos Ms. Chavez denounced at her press conference. How predictable that it was Jesse Jackson who would materialize to characterize Ms. Chavez's helping hand to Ms. Mercardo as "indentured servitude." From there it was a race to the bottom. We've never thought much of the nanny laws Ms. Chavez is accused of having violated, a point made in these columns back when they snared Zoe Baird. But it is worth pointing out that Ms. Chavez and Ms. Mercardo both continue to insist that Ms. Mercardo was not an employee, a point supported by at least one eyewitness who worked out of Ms. Chavez's home during part of the time Ms. Mercardo resided there, John Miller, now of National Review. And what are we to make of all the prominent media types baying for Ms. Chavez's head? Surely some of them too have careers that would hardly be possible without off-the-books nannies. The word hypocrisy seems woefully inadequate. What Mr. Bush needs to do now is send up a nominee every bit as principled as Ms. Chavez -- for example, Elaine Chao, the former head of both the Peace Corps and United Way and a deputy transportation secretary in Bush Sr.'s Administration, as well as the wife of GOP Senator Mitch McConnell. Ms. Chavez is politically dead. It is up to Mr. Bush to see that her ideas live. She was in fact an exemplar of Mr. Bush's compassionate conservatism. This is very much in Mr. Bush's interest and that of all of his future nominees. We can well understand the importance that the Bush team attaches to disclosure. But the purpose of the blood-in-the-water game is to create a perception of weakness. Once that's established, the forces that brought down Linda Chavez will move in for bigger game.