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DON'T CRY FOR ME, LINDA CHAVEZ
A would-be secretary gets sacked
The seven of you who read this column regularly know how I feel about Republicans in general, and our President-elect in particular. Linda Chavez, the conservative columnist who would be labor secretary, is no exception.
Here's what you need to know about Chavez: She named her puppy Reagan. And when Reagan got out of hand, she returned him to the breeder, whom she hoped would find the puppy "a good Republican home."
She also wrote this about Dubya, before he won the election and well before he nominated her for labor secretary: "…I spent about an hour talking to Bush on policy issues, one-on-one -- but I came away impressed with his understanding of issues. …He cited with ease books and studies he'd recently read. He was quick, articulate and well-informed. I found his arguments thoughtful, even on those areas on which we disagree."
The perception of Bush as "benighted," she explains, is the fault of the liberal-leaning media. His substandard grades, lackluster resume, criminal record, drug habit, ignorance of foreign policy, inane speeches, and inability to read from the teleprompter are, she would have us believe, incidental.
Her political column, whose national syndication suggests that literary agents will be sending limousines for Yours Truly any day now, is six paragraphs of drab commentary that rely heavily on statistics. (In a recent installment, she claims Republicans do not traditionally oppose civil rights legislation because more Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This, we presume, was the most recent example of Republican civil rights activism she could find).
Throw in her views on bilingual education, private school vouchers, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and minimum wage, and you have John Ashcroft in a diversity-friendly body.
Unlike the Bible-thumping, teetotaling Ashcroft, who holds an honorary degree from racist Bob Jones University, Chavez will not have the opportunity to defend her nomination to the Senate. Last week, she withdrew her name from consideration amid reports that she housed an illegal immigrant for two years in the early 90s.
Chavez claims she took in Marta Mercado as "an act of kindness" when Mercado, a victim of domestic abuse, had nowhere else to go. She gave her room and board and spending money, but at no time, she says, did she employ the woman -- although Mercado did perform household chores from time to time.
"What I did was no illegal; it was not immoral," Chavez told The New York Times. "I don't check green cards when I see a woman who is battered and who has no place to live and nothing to eat and no way to get on her feet."
Her would-be Cabinet-mate Ashcroft might say she was doing her duty as a good Christian (Although the cynic in me wonders why she let Mercado stay for two years and returned Reagan after a few weeks; could it be she enjoyed the free services of her live-in housekeeper?).
Chavez, if she is telling the truth, should be applauded for opening her home to a battered woman. Certainly, the Democratic collective can appreciate such a random act of charity.
Why, then, was she forced to step down?
Because when (Democratic) Attorney General appointee Zoe Baird was found to have employed illegal immigrants in 1993, Chavez was one of her most outspoken critics. In her column and on television she repeatedly bashed Baird. "How can we appoint an Attorney General who violated the law?" and so forth.
We now know that while she was on "McNeil-Lehrer" railing on Baird, Marta Mercado was back in New Mexico, cleaning casa Chavez.
"Hypocrisy is usually the one unforgivable sin in American politics," Chavez wrote on August 29, 2000, in a column on private school vouchers.
Not usually, Linda. Always.
By Greg Olear
011601