New Mexico governor Bill Richardson has withdrawn his name from consideration for the position of Secretary of Commerce. Apparently, a grand jury is investigating a potential pay-to-play scheme involving a California company that won a contract with the government of New Mexico.
“Let me say unequivocally that I and my Administration have acted properly in all matters and that this investigation will bear out that fact,” he said Sunday in a report by NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell. “But I have concluded that the ongoing investigation also would have forced an untenable delay in the confirmation process.”
I have to say that I heard rumblings both during the primaries and during the vetting for potential vice-presidential picks that Bill Richardson had too many dubious business connections and would prove an embarrassment if he wound up on the ticket. He is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, but this hardly comes a surprise to me. I applaud Richardson for doing what Governor Blagojevich refused to do, which is putting the party and the country before his own personal ambition.
The next question will be who Obama will select as Richardson’s replacement. Any ideas?
What a shame. Remember when we thought governors were the safe bet for elevation to national office? I never thought Commerce was the logical place to use Richardson’s talents, but it’s too bad to lose his talents and experience entirely. Maybe he’ll get a diplomatic post one of these days.
Seems like we’re reaching a point where only the most bland and inexperienced (think Carolyn Kennedy) will have a chance to go to DC. Maybe that’s a good thing, but right now we need an emergency infusion of competency, not vague good intentions.
As to who should get Commerce, I’m not sure it much matters. Whoever it is won’t seriously question anything about basic American capitalism dogma, so a random Republican would probably do as well as a mainstream Dem.
penny pritzker was originally considered a top prospect, but she withdrew from consideration. wonder if she’ll renege?
the original short list, via cnn’s political ticker, looked like this:
sebelius has removed herself from consideration as well, ims. the rest of that list don’t inspire much confidence.
early on, susan collins [R] was bandied about, but l suspect that was just wishful thinking on behalf of some partisans.
at least he did the right thing. the RATs would have used this like a cudgel in confirmation.
How about Blagojevich?
I mean…really. Comnmerce is obviously his strong suit, and that would eliminate the whole senator replacement thing. The Commerce post would be his pay, and he’d let the mainstream Dems insert whatever clone they want into the Illinois senatorial seat.
Now that would be some logrolling!!!
AG
P.S. You guys are always talking about the inner game of politics, right? Except for the undeniable fact that Patrick “Every Day Is Fitzmas” Fitzgerald’s office leaked the tapes, how far off of mainstream politics is that one?
Blogojevitch got wiretapped theorizing about exactly that sort of action. Are y’all so mediatapped-out by Kutie Katie and her media Hustle Korps brethren/sistren that you think the samew act does not pertain up and down the line?
“I am outraged!!!” says Preznit-to-be-Obama into the soundbite while behind his back the dirtier hand directs Rahm Emanuel to slit whatever throats are needed to be slit.
Richardson is just another fat little two-faced hustler hitching his doney to whatever heavy goes by. Grew a beard so’s he could pass as “other” with the Obamas. Hispanic? Right. The son of an American banker.
His hustle got caught.
A little.
No Fitzgerald on his ass.
Why?
Who cares about New Fucking Mexico?
Chicago is where the power is at.
Richardson?
Go ride a burro somewhere, try to convince people you’re Mexican.
Whadda buncha maroons!!!
Later…
AG
Go ride a burro somewhere, try to convince people you’re Mexican.
Not okay.
Not even close.
Burro. From donkey. As in DemocRat.
From humor. As in the crass manner that this motherfucker tried to pass himself off as a “Mexican”-American for political gain.
And succeeded.
What part of being exploited by the middle and upper-middle classes does he share with about 90% of the Mexicans in this country? Pretty much NONE of whom ride burros. That’s why it’s funny.
Here’s what he shares with Mexican-American voters:
“…American Citibank executive who grew up in Boston…”
“… socialite”
“Just before Richardson was born, his father sent his mother to California to give birth…My father had a complex about not having been born in the United States.”
Oh the shame!!!
“At age 13, Richardson’s parents sent him to Massachusetts to attend a preparatory school, Middlesex School in Concord, Massachusetts…”
A school that presently charges $42,820 for boarding students. Inflation just makes the numbers bigger. It was an elitist, expensive boarding school then just as it is now.
Betch he didn’t strut his “Mexicanness” all that much while he was there.
Betcha.
Born in ’47?
He started there at 13?
About 1960?
Yup.
“Mexican” in an elite Massachusetts boarding school in 1960?
I will bet you that there were no minority students there whatsoever.
Betcha.
Probably weren’t even any Jews there, let alone Mexicans. Or maybe even Catholics.
And there was no Hispanic civil rights movement to speak of then. either. Cesar Chavez was just starting the UFW in 1962, and he didn’t come to national notoriety until the mid-’60s.
Being “Mexican” in Concord, Massachusetts in 1960?
Please.
It wasn’t even on the racist radar.
Plus…this fool isn’t slick enough to get his sports lies straight.
Plus…he ran off of the Clinton boat in plain sight and onto the Obama boat like a rat deserting a sinking ship.
With friends like this…who needs Rahm Emanuel?
AG
P.S. Check this out, Brementown?
before and after.
On the left…his publicity photo from when he was Ambassador to the UN for the Bill and Hill show.
On the right? When he cozied up to Obama.
Look hard.
Yup.
Can you imagine what kind of sleazy plots went through this man’s mind as he sat underneath the tanning lamp and/or slathered ManTan on his puss while he cultivated that lovely south-of-the-border, swarthy bearded look.
Hell man…he’s darker than Barak.
I wonder which way he would have gone if the presumed winner was blonde.
But…I forgot.
You had a thing for Edwards, too.
Anybody but Hillary, right?
Sorta-kinda?
Another wishy-washy, kneejerk leftiness clone.
Why do I bother?
Go away.
You do not have the sense that you should have been born with.
P.P.S. PC this, Brementown. I got yer PC, right here!!!
Goddamn I am sick of humorless PC motherfuckers!!!
I thought you deserved an explanation for the first troll-rating.
The second one, not so much.
That’s not an explanation.
It is just a complaint that is founded upon…well, I do not quite know upon what it is founded.
A bad case of PC virus?
An equally bad case of “Defend Democrats who I have been told are heavy because they appeared a few times on my TV screen” hypnomedia poisoning?
This man…much like John Edwards…is indefensible. He is just another in a long line of rodent-like political hustlers.
So I guess that cannot tell someone who is running an Irish hustle to go belly up to the bar and try to convince people he’s Irish? Or is that OK because I have an Irish name?
PC is a failure, Brementown. It’s soccer mom territory, now.
Saaaaay…you’re not a soccer mom, are you?
Oh.
SO sorry to have insulted your ethnicity.
What?
“Soccer mom” is not an ethnic slur?
It is in my neighborhoods.
That never occurred to you?
Seen anyone other than “white” referred to as a “soccer mom”?
Oh.
Being identified as “white” is not an ethnic slur?
Oh.
It is in my neighbor…oh what the hell, why go on?
I guess it’s all in where you live.
In your own head.
You ever hear the old American phrase “That’s very white of you?” YOU remember…in the ’30s movies, when someone did something generous or kind? They’d say “That’s very white of you.”( I don’t have to remind you that any “someone” other than a servant or some other subordinate comic figure in those movies was going to be of Northern European ascent, do I? Or do I?) Well in the circles in which I travel…I am identifiably “white” by the way, as opposed to Bill Richardson who apparently tries to pass as whatever will most profit him…in the circles in which I most often travel, the phrase “That’s very white of you” is most often meant as either a (slightly) veiled insult or at best a bitter joke.
Being outraged over my saying “Go ride a burro somewhere, try to convince people you’re Mexican.”
That’s very white of you.
Followed closely by the laugh that does not mean “Ha-ha.”
Now the second troll-rating I can understand.
The truth hurts.
But the first?
Weak.
An explanation?
Please.
I’d love one.
Give it a try.
You kin do it!!!
Later…
AG
Mind your manners, Arthur. Jesus.
“Jesus” what, Booman?
Someone wants to scold and troll rate me for a passing comment about a second-rate political hustler who is and has been running a faux racial game for political and quite probably (on the evidence of his recent cabinet backdown) financial profit? A pol who cravenly switched camps in midstream as soon as he saw which way the current was running?
I’ll back it up.
Every time.
AG
Mind your manners by kindly not calling other posters names and giving them the finger.
As for your argument, it’s rude to suggest that a boy that spent his first 13-years in Mexico City and had a Mexican mother is not authentically Mexican. It’s pretty much the same argument that Obama is not authentically black.
I do not think that Barak Obama is “authentically black”, Booman. Nor did he run on that part of his ethnicity. He grew up in a sort of racial limbo. Hawaii is as mixed racially as it is possible to be. Kinky hair? Oh. You mean like so many South Pacific islanders? Skin that is less that lily white? Oh. You mean like so many Asians? Was his physical appearance “black” enough to get him messed with in any number of areas of the U.S.? Yes indeed. But culturally he grew up “other”. NOT black as it is usually meant in contemporary American society.
He ran as an American; that he damned well is, and he has my utmost respect for that choice
Now…contrast his choice with Richardson’s craven set of hustles.
There is no comparison. Richardson’s skin color modulation was one of the most bald-faced, racist acts that I have ever witnessed in American politics. He’s just a shape-shifter version of the classic Renfield political type.
Scooter Libby trying to pass in the neighborhood.
Calling other posters names?
I wrote :
In the plural.
A true statement.
Someone fits into that category?
SO sorry!!!
If the shoe fits…walk in it.
Giving other posters the finger?
I wrote:
Followed by an image of some hostile young Hispanics…who were, as I recall the context of that image, being photographed as they waited in a park for day work. (YOU know? Like so many other Central American laborers in the U.S. l who are “being exploited by the middle and upper-middle classes?” [from my original response])
There is the “PC” of the used and abused.
A crotch grab, an upraised finger and the “Huh, uh huh huh huh huh” laugh of people likew Flash & The Furious Five. A laugh that does not mean “Ha ha” no matter in which dialect it is being laughed.
The one that I am currently laughing at this very moment.
I gave him/her the real “PC”.
Right there.
That is true “political correctness”. Not this faux politeness of the Reid/Pelosi class.
You want political correctness?
How about a public hanging of war criminals on the DC mall?
Televised worldwide.
There would be some “PC” to which I could subscribe.
What I did?
It ain’t shit.
Later…
AG
just chill out and be respectful. I don’t care about your argument. I think it’s bogus and mildly offensive, but I’m reprimanding you for being a prick to another user, not for making your argument.
Show me how it’s bogus.
AG
It’s not worth my time, Arthur. If you want to argue what it means to be authentically black that’s your waste of time, not mine.
You are the one that brought “authentically black” up, not me. All I was saying was that Richardson used his his ethnicity as a political tool, that he played both ends against the middle in doing so, and that he is a dishonest political hustler.
In a political sense, if I was born in Harlem or Ghana or someplace of an African-ascended mother and a European-ascended father, has a racially fairly neutral set of names could with a little application of makeup or what have you easily pass for someone of either purely European bloodlines or multi-ethnic ones and used that possibility to get over in whatever political direction most suited my ambitions, what the fuck would I be?
I would be a dishonest, race card-using (in both directions) political hustler.
That was my point.
What is yours?
That I was a little…shall we say “rude”, or just “honest”? …with a PC geeky poster?
Sorry.
The finger was for ALL PC-blinded fools, not just that one.
What?
Are we on CBS now?
I hope not.
AG
whatever.
Good argument.
AG
PhD in EE and solid experience on the biz and technical side of major tech companies like Google, Novell and Sun.
The scandals begin already.
I’m waiting for the Clinton show.
BTW, I heard a rumor today that Patterson will appoint WJC to fill HRC’s Senate seat.
Speechless.
Oddly, it’s being spun out here in New Mexico as a sort of “postponement” of Richardson being invited into the Obama administration. See here:
http://www.democracyfornewmexico.com/democracy_for_new_mexico/2009/01/the-plot-thickens-denish-says-
richardson-postponed-joining-obama-administration.html
Relevant to this is Richardson’s assertion, in his official statement of withdrawal, that Diane Denish “will be a terrific governor in the future”. I didn’t see that in your linked article, but it seems worth a mention.
I mean, how can he be so confident that she will be a governor at all? He could have said that she has all the makings of a terrific governor … but that’s not the same thing.
Now that you’ve posted what you have, this statement of Richardson’s looks like a postponement announcement. Thanks!
Denish has been unofficially running for gov for many moons now, and has been functioning as gov during the many times Richardson has been out of state during his presidential run and his campaigning for Obama.
I had covered other aspects of this in previous posts which you can read if you are so inclined:
http://tinyurl.com/7c42e9
http://tinyurl.com/7k7kxq
I feel the entire roll-out and timing of this withdrawal by Richardson is very odd.
Its about time he was removed from the scene. All I have to do is remember Wen Ho Lee and remember our Secretary of Energy was implicated when the judge in the case apologized to the possibly guilty defendant because of the executive branch shit they pulled on him. Interesting precursor to the lawlessness of the current Chimperor. They built upon the Clinton legal stonewalls against congress and added it to the previous learned Iran-Contra knowledge,
Nydia Velasquez
I say Ralph Nader.
Oh what fun THAT would be!!!
How about Nader for Commerce and Cynthia McKinney for Attorney General?
YES!!!
(Nothing of the sort will ever happen, of course…)
AG