cha cha cha chavez

[waterj2]

My comment was not really directed at you, Mandelstam. Nor was it my intention to say that Chavez’s critics are motivated by base partisan politics. Personally, I find it rather amusingly ironic that those who condemned Baird and Wood are now responsible for sinking the nomination of one of their own. They raised the bar for their own purposes, and now it’s too high to let in people they want, and who have never really done any great wrong. Basically, I take PunditLisa’s stance on the issue.

My feeling is that Chavez was motivated by a feeling of genuine compassion, and certainly knew that it must be nice to have an extra hand around the house. I don’t think what she did was an attempt to circumvent the laws for her own benefit, but it does give the appearance of that, to the extent that it would be inappropriate for her to be the Secretary of Labor. In addition, we really can’t know for sure what she was truly motivated, and the fact that she was trying to hide it doesn’t work in her favor.

However, there was at least one poster here that seemed to be arguing that since Chavez is a Republican, she could not have been acting out of compassion. And that is what I was objecting to.

[ruadh]

Great post, PunditLisa. And I don’t usually tend to agree with you It was a stupid reason for Baird and Wood to be dropped and it’s a stupid reason for Chavez to be dropped. I’m not sorry to see her go, though.

Mandelstam:

I’d like to know who’s been cleaning the houses of some of these male cabinet picks and why the issue never seems to come up. Maybe they’re just more careful–but I doubt it’s b/c their wives are doing the housework themselves.

One thing that always annoyed me about the Baird case was here was a woman making $500,000 a year while her husband made a mere $150,000 (or something like that), and not one person, so far as I can recall, said “Why didn’t her husband just stay home with the kids? He didn’t need to work!”

[Felinecare]

*Originally posted by jb_farley *
From what it looks like, sometime after offering Ms. Mercado the choice of living in her home rather than a shelter for abused women, Chavez offered to help Mercado get her papers. The process stalled, and Mercado left the U.S. When she came back after 6 months, this time (knownst to Chavez) with an invalid passport, Chavez was more wary of the law, and didn’t offer lodging.

Where’s the lack of charity?

Felinecare, you should read that too.

and as for her lack of success, Felinecare? I’m sure the other recipients of Ms. Chavez’ charity would disagree.
jb

Do you have a cite for the Mercado timeline? I haven’t been able to find one that states the above.

Speaking of timelines, did the folks on the podium meet Chavez before or after Mercado?

[jb_farley]

don’t remember the article, and didn’t save it.

so I’m trawling yahoo for some confirmation.

here’s some:

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/ap/20010109/el/bush_chavez_14.html

[jb_farley]

and hey, I forgot about this, but couldn’t let it stand. Let’s wash the fucking hogs!

Excuse me, jb, but this is hogwash. I’m not even sure they got it this wrong on the television. I do not, of course, deny that Chavez, a controversial right-of-center choice, was not being assailed by various liberals and Democrats… But it’s simply not the case that Chavez withdrew b/c of the Democrats; she withdrew b/c she was given the signal that she no longer had the support of the Republicans.

Of course, this was Mandelstam’s response to my “Mandelstam you are not right… [Chavez] withdrew her nomination amid a barrage of political lawn darts, chucked mainly by democrats.”

Now, this was a defense of Sam Stone, who in an earlier post said (jesus chris, this is like merrily we roll along)

What really happened with Chavez is this: The liberals didn’t want her in the Cabinet, so they dug up any dirt they possibly could to try and destroy her.

to which MAndelstam responded

Really? It looks to me like what really happened is that Bush told her tell her story walking.

Now, to wrap up. Sam said Chavez’ withdrawl was due to Democratic attempts to destroy her nomination. Mandelstam fires back with, “Nuh-uh, she withdrew because the Republicans don’t back her anymore.” Well dur. But the republicans didn’t back her, but they stopped because of aforementioned lawn darts. And then Mandelstam uses the same tired defense in a rebuttal post? Hogwash, indeed.
jb

[Mandelstam]

It may seem like splitting hairs but there is a very serious distinction to be made here. Look at the difference between Ashcroft and Chavez. Anti-Ashcroft forces of various stripes are working triple overtime digging up awesome dirt on this guy. And, who knows, they might succeed (though I think it will be difficult). But the Republicans aren’t backing down and you can be certain that Ashcroft has been signaled and signaled again that they have no intentions of backing down. As you saw reported in the NYT, in the Chavez case, the Republicans chose not to fight for her and she was signaled accordingly. That was my point. Bush and co. could have defended her and stuck to their guns on this one. But, as I said, instead they opted to tell her–albeit quietly–“to tell her story walking.” Regardless of how they may have felt about her relation to Mercado, they did not choose to waste political capital fighting over the skeletons that she’d chosen to hide from them. So, as far as I’m concerned, anyone who regrets the loss of Chavez on these or any other grounds, had best write to W.