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SHOW: ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (9:00 PM ET)
January 8, 2001, Monday
LENGTH: 211 words
HEADLINE: PERSONAL CRITICISMS OF HIGH-LEVEL APPOINTEES OVERSHADOW POLICY VIEWS
ANCHORS: NOAH ADAMS
BODY: NOAH ADAMS, host:
News analyst Daniel Schorr says the opposition to Cabinet nominees is nothing new. But he says the reasons cited for opposing them could obscure bigger and more important issues.
DANIEL SCHORR:
It's Nannygate time again in a presidential transition, the time when nominees for high office find themselves preoccupied more with defending small missteps than big policies. In 1993, President Clinton's successive nominations of Zoe Baird and Kimba Wood for attorney general went down over matters of employing illegal aliens and not paying Social Security taxes. Then retired Admiral Bobby Ray Inman, nominated for Defense secretary, bowed out over what he called a Nannygate problem of Social Security taxes. Some may find it ironic that Linda Chavez, nominee for Labor secretary in the Bush Cabinet, should be charged with using an illegal alien around the house. Ironic because the same Linda Chavez on the PBS "Newshour" in December 1993 said that what most upset Americans about Zoe Baird was that she had hired an illegal alien. So now Chavez is left to explain in a makeup interview with the FBI that her relationship with a Guatemalan, Marta Mercado, involved compassionate conservatism, not employment.
And other Cabinet nominees have things to explain. Secretary of State-designate Colin Powell has to explain a fee, reported to be more than $ 100,000, from a billionaire Lebanese official for a speech on the Middle East at Tufts University five days before the election when Powell had already indicated he would join a Bush Cabinet.
And Defense Secretary-designate Donald Rumsfeld is explaining why he responded only with, 'That's right' and 'That's for sure,' in a taped conservation in 1971 with President Nixon, who described black Africans as being basically just out of the trees. Rumsfeld said through a spokesman that he had meant only to acknowledge Nixon's remarks, not to agree with them.
These are the kind of matters like membership in segregated country clubs or investments suggesting conflict of interest that more and more bubble up from the past to becloud the confirmation process. They may serve as distractions from issues of greater substance, such as those facing nominees John Ashcroft for Justice, Gale Norton for Interior, and Linda Chavez. But in a time of intense scrutiny of personal traits and behavior, they are sure to preoccupy the confirmation committees and the public. This is Daniel Schorr.