You can trust politicians. It didn't take too long to come to this realization. You really can trust politicians-;as candidates you can trust them to say anything to get elected; once elected you can trust them to play havoc with their promises. As the transition team began to deal with cabinet confirmation hearings my trust in George W. Bush was reaffirmed.
You can trust politicians to be what they say they are not. The Nixon tapes showed the Quaker whose wife had a simple Republican wool coat to be duplicitous, paranoid and foul-mouthed. From statements like the elder George Bush's "read my lips" to Clinton's "I didn't have seuxal relations with..." we know that we can trust even Presidents to lie. Photographs have been doctored to effect public response since the days of Matthew Brady propping up bodies before the camera during the Civil War. The truth of film, video, or any medium with political purchase must now be called into question. Truth has become more elusive since the special effects of Forrest Gump, celebrity impersonators on daytime TV and radio talk shows. Not only can't we believe what we see or hear, but we can't credit what we read—who owns the press must be considered in our search for truth. Advertising, e-mails, and direct mail campaigns purporting to be of grassroots origin often actually emerge from one camp or another fueled by special interests' bucks.
Linda Chavez
I trust, therefore, that the Linda Chavez nomination was made by Dubya and/or his minions in full knowledge of the consequences of their choice. When Chavez withdrew her nomination under the same fire that blew Zoe Baird out of the water one had to smell a rat. A former Republican staffer recounted on a weekend talk show her experience with the background check she went through under their last administration. ( She asked other's in the know how much she actually needed to tell investigators. ) Now here's Dubya's nominee, subject to FBI check and questioning at confirmation hearings, with a similar situation to one that sunk a Democratic nominee in the prior administration. Don't you think the candidate whose dad was head of the CIA before becoming President himself would have the connections to assure that a proposed nominee was forthcoming in everything that mattered? Perhaps I could suggest a scenario—a quick nomination of a suitable Latina ( even if she didn't speak Spanish ) would fill the dual bill of fostering the claim of cabinet diversity and throwing a fish to Hispanic supporters. I might suggest someone knew that the nomination would buckle, but played the odds that if it did the feeding frenzy would stir up the waters around that carcass and other more difficult candidates ( like Ashcroft ) might find it easier to sail through. Democrats could appease their constituents—he didn't get in his whole team, we pruned out Chavez, etc. It makes a weird kind of sense to me.
The China Connection
Now Dubya's team has proposed a woman of Chinese ancestry for the Labor Secretary position saying she is equally qualified and doesn't have the Chavez baggage. Then why wasn't she the first nominee for the position? Maybe she was. Chinese Americans have less votes than the Spanish speaking communities—perhaps the latter were offered a reward for their votes. Not Dubya's fault Chavez had to withdraw. But if one knew in advance that nomination would tank, how convenient to have another nominee in the wings ... and not just any minority nominee. NAFTA has kinda put Mexico in the plus column on labor issues, but the big labor challenges and markets in this millennium will be from the Orient, and China in particular.
The Queer Question
Dubya ran on a centrist platform, but his appointments are all pretty well right of center, and a few are holding up the end-poles. Clinton, also centrist, didn't waiver long on gays in the military before buckling to Colin Powell and the Pentagon. Bush appointees have already made their positions on gays, in or out of the military, clear. The gay community at large has always been more reactive than proactive. Perhaps this administration will be what is needed to get the assimilationist apathetic off their butts. Honey, Dr. Laura ain't nothing compared to what's upcoming.
A Piece of the Pie
"Compromise is the way things get done," they tell us, "You idealists out there don't understand quid pro quo." Compromise is not just a midpoint between opposing sides, it is "a weakening of one's principles" usually for reasons of expediency. I credit those in our community who always tried to work within the system to change things. Jimmy Bussen in the Catholic Church, Bill Kelley and Art Johnston in city and state politics, and innumerable others. I listen to those that say if you are not a part of the solution, then you are part of the problem. After 200 years I don't believe this country has even begun to define what the real problem is. We have let the sexual peccadilloes of Presidents from Jefferson to William Jefferson Clinton obscure the sinister truth that we can trust them to do or say anything in pursuit of power. Power—and the imbalance of power expressed in race, gender, class and ( money ) economics—cloaked in a Puritan sexual ethic and perversion of religion is at the core of all our social ills from discrimination to the destruction of our global environment, not to mention war. Those we want to hold as heroes, from Ghandi to Martin Luther King and the transvestite Jeanne d'Arc, didn't like pie.
Copyright 2001 by Marie J. Kuda. kudoschgo@aol.com
