Bad Apples

Well, here we go again, Bush. Here’s another of your appointments who evidently prefers to cater to the corporate gang rather than do the people’s business. We were talking about this just the other day, if you recall. Back then, only last Thursday, it was your Philip A. Cooney who was rigging reports on global warning to satisfy your need to plesase the oil interests. This week it’s Associate Attorney General Robert D. McCallum, your old Skull & Bones pal from Yale, who’s out to rescue the tobacco industry from the results of five years of his own department’s investigative work and legal action.

After all those years of dedicated efforts by the legal experts in the Justice Department, the trial team which has worked on the case was all ready to settle racketeering charges against the industry for $130 billion when your Mcallum stepped in with his superior authority and ordered the settlement amount to be reduced to $10 billion. He did this over the strong objections of his own department’s team, and apparently without even bothering to review the evidence. Even the trial judge in the case was taken aback by the announcement, and muttered darkly about improper influences. Turns out, Bush, your McCallum was a partner in the Atlanta law firm of Alston & Bird, which has acted as legal representative for the J. R. Reynolds Tobacco Company. No coincidences, huh?

So what does your Gonzales have to say about this interference by his No. 3 man on behalf of the company against which his own department brought suit? I haven’t heard peep. And I guess I have to take silence and inaction to be tacit approval. Perhaps the Justice Department has adopted a new philosophy, Bush, more in line with your own: do everything to support business and the corporate world, if necessary at the expense of the general public—in this case, those who would have benefited from the stop-smoking programs to be funded by this judgment.

I don’t know whether you’ve noticed the smell that seems to be pervading Washington these days, Bush, but there’s scandal brewing everywhere—from your Tom Delay's office to the lobbyists hired by your Corporation for Public Broadcasting chairman, Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, in his effort to do the dirty on the organization that you appointed him to chair. We’re going to hear more about this, Bush, as your pals in congress try to kill the funding for this last remaining fair and reliable source of news.

And by the way, I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but your ratings are slipping pretty badly in the polls. Seems like even some of those who voted for you are beginning to question the wisdom of their judgment. Watch out, Bush. There’s a shitload of bad apples out there, and some of them are the ones that you plucked with your own fair hands from the tree.