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Liberals Refuse to Get Over Election John L. PerryOnce upon a time winners won, losers lost, and that's how elections worked. Today, leftists in Congress demand President Bush appoint those who opposed him. They're not quibbling about a job or two here or there. They're talking about – pitching a fit about – his ability to staff hundreds of critical federal positions. Because the 2000 presidential election was so close, Democrats, who lost, are insisting the new president's appointments must reflect "political diversity." As Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, put it, in the Democrats' view "political diversity means you pick people who oppose you." To the Vanquished Go the Spoils What's this? The historic American political patronage system in reverse? Yes, that too. But it's more than a new political credo. It has to with far more than merely rewarding one's friends and supporters with jobs on the government patrol, although there's no denying the squabble on Capitol Hill is over who is to fill which federal positions. The larger issue is over how in the world this Republican president – how any American president – can be expected to govern as he was elected to govern without staffing key managerial posts in the federal establishment with people on whom he can confidently rely. All the while denying that's what they were doing in practice, congressional Democrats persistently put Bush's top nominees, such as John Ashcroft for attorney general, through a time-consuming confirmation wringer. Lost in Liberal Limbo In some instances they are rejected outright. Others are still cooling their heels, awaiting confirmation hearings in the Senate, now controlled by Democrats. No one is under any illusions. If Bush has an opportunity to nominate a Supreme Court justice, the litmus test of left-wingers will be applied with a vengeance. Those are the nominations that attract the news-media spotlight. Meanwhile, going almost unnoticed are those hundreds of appointments to what might be called middle-level management positions. Democrats have discovered what they consider a scandal: Bush is naming people whose loyalties he has, whose philosophy of government parallels his. What's So Alien About That? The old-fashion concept of the results of an election actually being translated into practice didn't seem so upside-down to the presidential press spokesman. "It should surprise no one that the president would pick people to serve in his administration who support his approach," Fleischer said. "The president is a compassionate conservative, and the people he chooses share that philosophy." That fact is all it took to set the teeth on edge of Washington Beltway leftists and their allies on Capitol Hill. They have their eyes on more than 400 sub-Cabinet jobs, "a critical stratum composed of people who work for the most part anonymously but who yield great influence as they implement and administer the broad policies formulated by more senior officials," as the Long Island Newsday put it recently. Few Friendly Faces Never mind that holdovers from the Clinton-Gore administration have been filling such positions for the first half-year of the Bush-Cheney administration, making it difficult, at times impossible, for the new team to get its work done. No complains there from Democrats, but more than a few S.O.S. pleas from frustrated higher-level Bush appointees who have felt surrounded and outnumbered by the enemy in the halls of Washington's bureaucracy. Here's how Newsday described the way it is seen by Elliott Mincberg, legal director of a liberal advocacy group called People for the American Way: "The layer of government below the Cabinet level has enormous power. They are the ones charged with doing the real business of government. "They implement policies, and in many cases they make policies, in terms of enforcement, in terms of agency rules, in terms of really making government run." Their Way or No Way That, of course, is why congressional Democrats have those 400-plus jobs in their cross hairs – to stop, where possible, government from running, unless it is running the way they want it to run. A good illustration of that is a hit list being circulated by that very left-wing, pro-Democratic Party group, People for the American Way. Some of the Bush nominees at the top it its must-stop list:
His sin? He once served as press secretary for conservative Sen. Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican, and as Virginia's health and human services secretary was supported by the religious right. Can't Have Any of That
His sin? He formed a Harvard University center, funded in part by corporate entities, that advocates cost-benefit standards for government regulations.
Her sin? She is opposed to abortion, and was at one time a dean at Regent University in Virginia, founded by the conservative televangelist Pat Robertson. The Ghost of Clinton Past
His sin? He was critical of what he regarded as the Clinton-Gore administration's overly aggressive approach to antitrust cases that overlooked economic benefits of some proposed corporate mergers.
His sin? He is accused of having tried to generate support for the Nicaraguan anti-communist Contras. One sub-Cabinet nominee who is receiving press attention – no surprise – is that of Eugene Scalia, son of conservative Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. Not a Member of the Local Bush nominated him to be the top lawyer for the Labor Department. The AFL-CIO, with its enormous power within the ranks of Democratic members of Congress, is fit to be tied. Scalia's sin? He believes in encouraging voluntary compliance by employers with labor law in preference to a strong-arm form of federal enforcement. And on and on it goes. Left-wingers insist Bush's nominees are from the radical right, and should not be entrusted with government positions. Redefining the Meaning of Mainstream That's disputed by Grover Norquist, who heads Americans for Tax Reform, a conservative advocacy group. He told Newsday: "These appointments are not out of the mainstream. They're just out of where groups like People for the American Way would like the mainstream to be. "Bush is not picking right-wingers. He's just picking Republicans. "This is what happens when you have elections." When prominent Democrats denounced Bush's election last year, saying they were not going to recognize it as legitimate, they weren't kidding. Nine months later, they still haven't gotten over it.
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