Column for the Front Weekly

Here is a column I wrote for the Front in Pittsburgh. It's in this week's issue. I also did some commisioned cartoons for their cover story on Wal Mart I'll post later this week. The sections referring to Bernard Kerik are already outdated as he had to resign for being crooked.


Guys with new hats

Liberal commentators have been making much of the high number of Cabinet heads resigning as if this were proof positive of Bush's failed administration. As of this writing eight of fifteen cabinet members have resigned. Clinton's second term saw seven leave, hardly an exodus from a failed administration. Most are old, at the end and peak of their careers. Others simply want to cash in on the lecture circuit or write some bestselling memoir while the time is right. The number of people resigning is not the startling factor; it's the character of the nominees replacing them.

Tom Ridge was the first to let on that he would leave during a second Bush term earlier this year. Three years of color coded terror alerts was too stressful and he, like so many other resigning politicians, cited "personal and family matters". His personal matters may include watching his stocks rise. As Secretary of Homeland Security he awarded hundreds of millions in contracts to companies that he coincidentally had shares in.

Wanting to stick with the same formula, Bush has nominated Bernard Kerik. Kerik was Police Commissioner of New York City from 2000-2001. Currently he is the Senior VP of Giuliani Partners and CEO of Giuliani-Kerik LLC., both consulting firms on domestic security. Kerik has made millions in the post 9/11 security buildup and stands to make even more deciding which defense consulting companies get contracts. These situations were once called a conflict of interests.

Colin Powell has long been considered the voice of opposition in the Bush cabinet. It is common knowledge he has been butting heads with the Department of Defense for the last four years over the course of our foreign policy. Although he has shamed his once good name by serving this administration, he did offer a slight variance on the neo-con war hawk theme. His departure, and the nomination of Condoleezza Rice as his replacement, marks the complete control the right wing of the right wing now have over the Washington War Room. She has an extremely myopic world view; stridently pro Israel, obsessed with good versus evil, and in favor of pre-emptive war. It's a safe bet she won't improve our international image.

A sigh of relief was heard from rule of law lovers everywhere upon news of John Ashcroft's resignation from his position as Attorney General. As a fundamentalist Christian with contempt for due process it seems you couldn't do much worse. With the powers of the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act he spent his time busting head shops instead of terrorists. He tried though, detaining over 5,000 Arab-Americans for suspicion of terrorism during his paranoid tenure. The number of those people convicted remains at exactly zero. "The objective of securing the American people has been secured" he oddly put it in his five page hand written letter of resignation to Bush.

Who could possibly succeed this man? Enter Alberto Gonzales, a behind the scenes architect of the military tribunals and torture found in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib Prison. He has written memos to Bush urging opposing the presumption of innocence with enemy combatants and has said that the "quaint" Geneva Conventions shouldn't apply to them. As the Abu Ghraib scandal came to light the infamous "torture memo" surfaced, papers detailing how to legally redefine torture to subvert the Geneva Conventions. This paper was not a reaction to these events but something that helped create them. It was requested from the Justice Department by Gonzales and dated August 1, 2002. A long time fan of sadism Gonzales also served as legal counsel to Bush when he was Governor of Texas, advising him on executions. He routinely left out pertinent information and opposing viewpoints in his written recommendations, helping to contribute to Bush's record152 executions.

Other replacements include nominating Carlos Gutierrez, CEO of Kellog, for Commerce Secretary and Mike Johanns, Governor of Nebraska, as Agriculture Secretary. Education Secretary nominee Margaret Spellings is an old chum from Texas. She has served as a Senior Advisor to Bush since his days as Governor and co-authored the No Child Left Behind Act. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has also resigned. His replacement has not yet been named, but look for Dick Cheney's enthusiastic support when it is.

With these people in place Bush's echo chamber has become even more focused, a close knit community of fellow business men and like minded ideologues. Bush, who has said he doesn't read newspapers, prefers to "get briefed by people who are probably read the news themselves (sic)." The chances of even slightly different viewpoints being taken seriously have gone from slim to none. His second term is likely to make the first look like a bipartisan utopia.

Democrats, lacking spinal fortitude, will not make any serious efforts to block the worst of these nominations. Criticisms of Rice and Gonzales have already drawn the predictable cries of racism. How ironic, they say, that Democrats fight for racially equality, then complain when it is achieved. "Rice will be the first black, woman Secretary of State! Gonzales the first Hispanic! Kerik the first bald Secretary of Homeland Security!" This Cabinet may be one of the most racially diverse, but it is also the most ideologically narrow in our history.