Outraged?
Well, turns out, so was George W. Bush!
While Bush was fending off criticism for going to that rally at Bob Jones University his campaign lashed out at McCain for being so low as to associate with the likes of Richard Quinn and his magazine the Southern Partisan.
Take a peek at this clip from a February 18th, 2000 article in the Washington Post:
Bush campaign spokesman Ari Fleischer called Quinn's writings "offensive," adding that McCain, "was very critical of one of Bush's supporters who said something he believed was out of line. Now it will be interesting to see how he reacts now that it is one of his supporters who has said something that is very out of line."Now here's where the story gets interesting. It was common knowledge at the time that the Bush folks were circulating copies of the Southern Partisan and trying to get reporters interested in pillorying McCain's outrageous behavior. (Maybe they even circulated the copy with John Ashcroft's interview in it?).
Someone should really ask Ari if he's had a change of heart.
But Spence Abraham . . . Now you're talkin'. I've gotta give Spence a big thumbs up. Sure he's a lousy pick to run the energy department (a department he voted to abolish). He's got terrible politics. And he's a complete oaf. But you've got to think of this one in terms of comedic potential. Before the voters of Michigan tossed him out on his ear two months back, I always used to think of Spencer Abraham as the "Mikey" of the Senate. You know, like Mikey from those Life Cereal commercials from back in the 1970s.
I could just imagine it . . .
Trent Lott: Who's gonna carry water/eat $&%# for irredeemable corporate interest X?And that pretty much tells you what Spence Abraham's career in the Senate was all about. He was the dorky little mascot for the most craven money-conservatives in the Senate -- the eager bumbler who the cool kids always kept around, if for nothing else than to give him noogies and have him man the keg at their parties.
Mitch McConnell: I'm not gonna eat it (slides the bowl over to Trent)
Trent Lott: Well I'm not gonna eat it (slides the bowl back over to Mitch)
Mitch McConnell: Hey, I know, let's get Mikey!
Trent Lott: Yeah! He'll eat anything.
Enough metaphors? Okay, I'll stop. But you get the idea.
Abraham was always carrying someone else's water, most often some corporate types who couldn't find a first-tier senator to do their bidding. Which sort of tells you why Bush and Cheney put him at energy. I'm not saying that Abraham's such a bad guy, or really any worse than anyone else Bush might have nominated. He's really just a party man who happened his way into the Senate when the Republicans destroyed the Dems back in 1994 and lost the seat in 2000 after the fever had passed.
My colleague Nick Confessore wrote an excellent piece on Abraham which is well worth a read.
Okay, sure. Nick said Abraham was gonna win. But, hey, give the kid a break. He's young. He can't get 'em all right. And besides Nick was the only one to tell the comical tale of how Abraham's Senate buddies tried to pull out all the stops (and thankfully failed) to bring their bud over the finish line.
P.S. Extra laughs on the Abraham subject can be found in Tuesday's article on him in the Washington Post. The article explains pretty nicely why, for Spencer Abraham, the phrase "pathetic hack" isn't so much derogation as painfully precise description.
The prospect of life outside government did not appeal to Abraham, some Senate sources say. His selection as energy secretary has baffled many environmentalists, political observers and even some of his closest colleagues. "I really think the answer is that once the cards were shuffled, that was the only one [cabinet position] left," said Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst and editor of the Rothenberg Report, an independent newsletter. "It was one of the slots they had open, and this is a multicultural cabinet if they ever had one."
Remember, comedic potential.
Do we really know that John Ashcroft is a man of integrity? Who knows? In absence of evidence to the contrary (and I don't know of any) I'm happy to believe that he's personally honest and all that. (I leave to another post the question of whether mercilessly slandering and defaming another honorable man of integrity, i.e., Ronnie White, diminishes one's own integrity.)
I'm happy to believe that John Ashcroft is a man of integrity. But who cares? That's much better than not being a man of integrity. But it's not a sufficient qualification for the job. And who agrees with me? Well, who else? John Ashcroft. Ashcroft has been a key figure in torpedoing numerous Clinton-appointees to the justice department and he's often said his opposition had nothing to do with their character or integrity. No one ever said Bill Lan Lee lacked integrity; Republicans just said he had the wrong position on affirmative action. Or listen to this from Mike Grunwald's recent article in the Washington Post: "[Ashcroft] personally held up the nomination of California attorney Margaret Morrow, who had broad bipartisan support, and voted against her purely on philosophical grounds -- even though he praised her integrity and intellect."
Maybe GOPers can defend Ashcroft on other grounds. But this one doesn't even pass the laugh test.
"I think it's very difficult for us as people who try to govern from the center to accept that kind of a nominee," says Daschle.
You gotta love Tom Daschle, a steel fist in a velvet glove.
