American Politics Journal -- Bad week at Dubya Rock



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Bad Week at "Dubya" Rock
..when it rains, it pours...

by Tamara Baker

Thursday, April 20, 2000 -- SAINT PAUL, MINNESOTA (AmpolNS) -- You know, it's usually the Democrats who are wildly disorganized and the Republicans who have the well-oiled political machinery.

Not this year.

The past few weeks in general, and the past few days especially, have seen one GOP problem after another, many of them the result of a certain former POW's refusal to play nice:

John McCain's pointed and continued non-endorsement of George W. Bush, even as he tees off the Falwell fans by ripping into the Moonie-subsidized Falwell's hawking of the libelous "Clinton Chronicles" videos;
Trent Loot (er, I meant "Lott"... no, I didn't) cheesed off the anti-abortion Religious Right crowd by saying he really liked the (pro-abortion!) movie The Cider House Rules;
John McCain's cockeyed stumping for Reichsmaior Rudy G., wherein he undermined all his good work on Giuliani's behalf by talking about the "star" power of his opponent, First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And now, because you knew he just couldn't keep his mouth shut for long...

HEEEEEEERE'S NEWTIE!

The former Speaker of the House, who stepped down in 1998 before his behavior would have forced him out of Congress, has delusions of regaining his influence. To that end, he's been hitting the pundit trail, making pronouncements on all manner of current events.

And now, he's trying, in typical Newt fashion, to bludgeon himself a place at Dubya's table -- and to perhaps simultaneously set up a rhetorical escape hatch for himself as the Unheeded Wise Man, should George W. Bush's team do as expected and blow him off.

At an April 15th function in Richmond, Virginia, as reported by the Associated Press, Gingrich said "there's too much Austin" in the Texas governor's campaign and that Bush needs to add more experienced advisers (like, perhaps, the Newtster?) if he wants to win the election this November.

As the article said:

"...Gingrich drew a gasp when he said first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton would easily beat New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in the New York Senate race, then be the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 2004 if Vice President Al Gore loses this fall... "

As ECW's Joel Gertner would say, "WELL, WELL, WELL."

So Gee Dubya must suck up to Newt as well as McCain?!?!?

Geez, this is one heck of a way to ask for a Cabinet position, Newt!

Or is the Grinch positioning himself so that when Shrub tanks in November, he can take false credit for being the man whose words of wisdom, if only they had been heeded, could have saved the Bush campaign?

This story would be funny enough on its own merits. But now, it looks as if Newt's little ploy has blown up in his face, so in order to save face, he's gone after the Associated Press.

George W. Bush's campaign, acting in the same spirit that caused them to bring a lawsuit against gwbush.com webmaster Zack Exley (you know, the suit that got laughed out of court recently?), has squawked at Newt, and Newt has retorted in kind to the AP.

Hence, this bizarre April 18th followup to the April 17th AP story:

The Associated Press erroneously reported.... that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicted Hillary Clinton would easily defeat New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in this year's New York Senate race.
Gingrich said Clinton had "a very good chance" of beating Giuliani and added, "If I were guessing right now, I would say she probably has the edge to win."
The story also erroneously reported that Gingrich said Texas Gov. George W. Bush needs to bring in more experienced advisers to run his presidential campaign. Gingrich did say that Bush's team "still has a little bit of Austin in their style" and is "not quite up to speed yet" in running a national campaign.

The funny thing is that AP repeated his quotes, and while saying they "erroneously reported" his words, they basically repeated their assessment of his remarks.

A phone call was set up with Newt speaking live on Rush's show on April 18th so he could "clarify" his remarks. This AP retraction doesn't mention the Limbaugh show.

Go figure.

But even as Dubya was browbeating Newt, and Newt was browbeating the AP to get a "retraction" (a courtesy that the AP has never granted to either Bill Clinton or Al Gore, to my knowledge - even though the horribly sloppy and negatively-slanted stories on Bill and Al could fill a book, and in fact has, yet another of the many long-forgotten land mines in his past has just gone off.

Remember when the Funeralgate scandal first broke in Texas last year?

It's now going to trial.

As reported by the AP on April 18th, George W. Bush has been named a defendant in a lawsuit filed by Eliza May, the fired former head of the Texas Funeral Service Commission. Governor Bush is accused of impeding an investigation of a company that contributed to his Texas gubernatorial campaign.

May alleges she lost her job over an investigation of Houston-based Service Corporation International. She filed her wrongful termination lawsuit last year and amended it on April 17 to include Bush.

The suit accuses the Republican's anointed one of conspiring to interfere with the agency's 1998 investigation of the company. "Defendant Bush directed, approved of, ratified, condoned and/or knowingly permitted his staff to intervene improperly" in the investigation, the filed lawsuit alleges.

Service Corporation International, one of the world's largest funeral home and cemetery operators, just happens to be headed by Bush family friend Robert Waltrip. According to the lawsuit, he contributed $45,000 to Bush's two gubernatorial campaigns.

Waltrip has also served as a trustee for the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station and has donated more than $100,000 through his company toward construction of this edifice.

At the time of her firing, May was investigating possible violations of funeral home regulations, including whether SCI was using unlicensed embalmers. The funeral home board's complaint review committee voted to assess more than 20 of SCI's affiliated funeral homes fines totaling $450,000. She was fired after Waltrip met with Bush's top aide Joe Allbaugh, to complain about the investigation.

According to the suit filed by May, she was twice called to meet with Allbaugh, who demanded more information about the investigation. At the end of one session, he said, "This isn't going anywhere." Eliza May's attorneys had sought to question Bush in a deposition last August, but their subpoena was dismissed by District Judge John Dietz.

May is a former Texas Democratic Party treasurer, a fact that the Dubya-appointed State Attorney General John Cornyn has tried to use against her. According to the AP, Cornyn's been saying that the lawsuit is politically motivated, a claim denied by her attorney, Charles Herring of Austin. In fact, we could turn around Cornyn's argument, and say that a decent case could be made that her firing by Dubya was politically motivated, as well as financially motivated on Waltrip's part.

Here's a story that has far more meat to it than Whitewater ever did. But will the mainstream press ever cover it a tenth as often?

Let's hope that they manage to cover it ten times more accurately than they did Whitewater.