Posted on 05/27/2003 10:37:11 PM PDT by victim soul
On its own, Christie Whitman's departure from the national political stage is a minor event. Her tenure at the Environmental Protection Agency will soon be forgotten, and her once limitless future is now decidedly in the past. What is momentous is how quickly Whitman went from rising star to Washington burnout. The story of how it happened is bad news for socially progressive Republicans everywhere.
Talk about potential: Whitman burst onto the political radar in 1990 when, in challenging Sen. Bill Bradley from New Jersey, she nearly pulled off an upset. She was elected governor three years later and quickly delivered on a campaign promise to slash the state's income tax. She also advocated strongly for abortion rights and retaining welfare benefits for unwed mothers.
Not surprisingly, praise - and opportunity - poured in from many corners. Whitman played a prime-time role at the 1996 Republican national convention. There was speculation she might be Bob Dole's running mate in the presidential race. And when Newt Gingrich and others sought to bring Colin Powell into the partisan fold, they repeatedly pointed to Whitman as proof that socially conservative views weren't a requirement for being at home in the Republican Party.
The pundits, too, were smitten. This is how PBS's Bonnie Erbe started a February 1996 column about Whitman: "She is strong, statuesque, articulate, charming, warm, cunning, practical, inviting and powerful." Three months earlier, when Steve Merrill had played host to his fellow Republican governors in Nashua, veteran political reporter David Broder named Whitman one of the three GOP governors with "the greatest potential to develop into national political figures."
One of the other two was Bill Weld of Massachusetts - remember him? In 1996 his was another name used by Republicans trying to make Powell feel comfortable with the party. By 1997 Weld was out of work, having resigned to become ambassador to Mexico, only to have his nomination blocked by Jesse Helms.
Lest it appear Broder didn't know what he was writing about, his third pick was a winner. Big time. Like Whitman, George W. Bush also had a prime-time role at the '96 convention. Unlike Whitman, Bush's star kept rising. Eventually, of course, she went to work for him.
In retrospect, directing the EPA while working for President Bush was a job in which Whitman was destined to disappoint almost everybody. Unfortunately, this was not a case where because she had critics on both sides of most issues she must have been doing something right. She would have been better off either chaining herself to the trees to protect them or picking up an ax to chop them down herself.
Instead, Whitman tried to walk an impossible line between an environmental conscience and the White House's big-oil, big-gas, big-coal, big-car agenda. Predictably, her decision to step down drew cheers from anti-environmentalists eager to have an unapologetic ally in the office, and shrugs from environmental advocates, who saw little to celebrate in her tenure but even less hope for a preferable successor.
And so another of the Great Moderate Hopes has been defeated - not even two presidential election cycles after being anointed a contender. Whitman and Weld are hardly alone in exile (will Powell be next?), but they've lost their chance to influence the GOP agenda. That's bad news for the environment, as well as for abortion rights and other civil liberties. Most of all, it leaves Republicans from another era - call them Rockefellers, Roosevelts or Lincolns - without a party to call home.
That sure is news to some Freepers. There are quite a few who think conservatives have no say in the Republican Party.
The title of the editorial implies that Republicans are making ONLY right turns.How is giving $15 Billion for AIDs in Africa "making only right turns"?!
How quickly the Left "forgets" the moderate policies of Republicans (the $15 Billion was just signed into law today, hardly enough time to warrant such forgetfulness)...
< /sarcasm >
Exactly, what a nit wit. Whiteman is the one who made such a big deal about Kyoto and somehow even believed Bush supported Kyoto, when all along Bush was very clear he opposed it. Whitman was a blackeye to the administration from day one, and never did anything legitimate about environmental policy. All Whitman did was be at odds over this stupid treaty that would do nothing for the environment,
*Code word for liberal.
I sure hope so!
How could we forget. A liberal one-man walking, talking a$$hole who hung out a sign saying "No Jews, No N**gers, No Dogs" (all spelled "No Conservatives") need apply." He completely destroyed the MA GOP. The media had orgasms over Weld because they wanted to allow him to accomplish his dream of destroying every state party in the nation. Trash of the highest order, and good riddance to it. Same for Miss Christie who didn't do anything as Governor except give the state one of the worst Supreme Courts in the nation. Tony Soprano would have it no other way.
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