UPI's That's Politics! for January 13, 2004

United Press International ^ | January 13, 2004 | Peter Roff

[PDR]

That's politics!

By Peter Roff, UPI Senior Political Analyst

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Keep your friends close ...

The Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney seems to make a habit of picking big fights with even bigger people. His latest punching bag is said to be U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, whom President George W. Bush has asked to become the State Department's new No. 2 to work with Secretary-designate Condoleezza Rice.

Gaffney, says a source who has spoken with him on the subject, believes the selection of the highly regarded Zoellick, who served in senior posts in both Bush administrations, amounts to a victory for careerists inside the department and represents a missed opportunity for the president to install his own man atop its bureaucracy.

This, say those close to the White House, is a ridiculous assertion.

In addition to the president, Vice President Dick Cheney and Rice both strongly encouraged Zoellick to make the move. The appointment won praise from more than a few conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill and his confirmation is expected to be easily won, making Gaffney's rumored opposition all the more puzzling. Some suggest, as one Washington lobbyist and former senior congressional staff member said, it may be "a shot across Condi's bow on the issue of personnel."

"She has never been very good on the idea that 'personnel is policy.' She has always been under the protection of the president and (the United States) has been at war. At State, she will have to handle these matters on her own and is going to have to take responsibility for her appointments."

But if this is the case, why pick a fight over Zoellick instead of raising the issue directly with Rice?

It's not the first time Gaffney has tangled publicly with the administration. Once the conservative "go-to guy" on many national security issues including the Strategic Defense Initiative, his influence has diminished in the days after Sept. 11, 2001, especially inside the current White House.

If that sounds counter-intuitive, it's not. For some time after the Sept. 11 attacks, Gaffney suggested in public -- and without offering any real evidence -- that some Muslim-American junior White House political appointees were security risks, mainly because they were Muslim-Americans. That, of course, led to Gaffney's expulsion from conservative strategist Grover Norquist's "Wednesday meeting" on the grounds that the attacks amounted to "bigotry," as Norquist said in an open letter.

Gaffney did not return a call requesting comment.

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Nasty, brutish and short.

In 1946, the U.S. Congress first took up the Hobbs Act, legislation drafted as a response to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in United States vs. Local 807 of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, in which the court found that threats of violence made by union members against non-union drivers if they did not pay a "toll" was an act furthering legitimate union goals. Therefore, the court said, the activity did not come under the authority of the 1934's federal Anti-Racketeering Act, which included a specific union-related carve out.

The Hobbs Act eventually became law in 1951. In 1973, however, the U.S Supreme Court pulled out all its teeth. In United States vs. Enmons -- a case involving three members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers who had been indicted for firing high-powered rifles at utility transformers, draining the oil from a transformer and blowing up a substation -- the court held that the language used by Congress in the Hobbs Act was too broad, changed federal labor law and interfered with states rights on the matter of criminal jurisdiction.

In essence, the decision recreated the loophole in federal law that allowed labor unions to engage in violence acts under the protection of U.S. law.

The problem has not gone away. According to a National Institute for Labor Relations Research analysis, there were more than 2,000 incidents in which promised or actual attacks against people or property were made between 1991 and 2001. Yet, for all that, there were a total of only 62 arrests that produced 10 sanctions of any kind.

Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., thinks that needs to be changed and is stepping up his efforts to put the Hobbs Act's teeth back in. Wilson plans to reintroduce his federal Freedom from Union Violence Act, which he first proposed in the 108th Congress, early in the new session. Wilson's bill would shut the loophole the court opened in 1973 and, he hopes, have a chilling effect on violence in the workplace.

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Paige-ing Mr. Williams.

Outgoing U.S. Education Secretary Rod Paige has ordered a thorough and expedited investigation into the reported payment of funds by a Washington public relations firm working on a government contract to a conservative commentator plugging the president's No Child Left Behind initiative.

In a statement issued Thursday, Paige said the challenge of communicating to parents the scope of the changes in U.S. education policy made by NCLB led the department to bring in an outside firm with expertise in social marketing, a fairly standard practice at most levels of government and in the private sector. The goal, Paige said, was to raise public awareness of the law so parents "could fully understand and take advantage of" its provisions.

The disputed funds, Paige said, "went exclusively toward the production and airtime of advertisements in which I described the law and encouraged viewers and listeners to call the department's toll-free information line," that were produced by a firm in which the commentator, Armstrong Williams, was a partner. "(They) covered those costs alone and nothing more," Paige said. "All of this has been reviewed and is legal."

"I am sorry that there are perceptions and allegations of ethical lapses," he said, adding it was "disappointing to me and to this department as a whole."

Paige also announced he had asked the department's inspector general to conduct an expedited investigation to clear up remaining aspects of the issue not yet addressed, "so that it does not burden my successor or sully the fine people and good name of this department."

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(That's Politics! looks at the inner workings of the U.S. political process and is written by UPI's Peter Roff, a 20-year veteran of the Washington scene.)

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(Please send comments to nationaldesk@upi.com.)

[GovernmentShrinker]

But if this is the case, why pick a fight over Zoellick instead of raising the issue directly with Rice?

Takes balls to take on Rice directly.

[PDR]

hah!