BACKGROUND CHECK HELL….Last year George Bush promised to appoint a manufacturing czar who would focus attention on the problem of manufacturing jobs moving overseas. Six months later Bush has finally found his man, Anthony Raimondo:
Kerry’s campaign, tipped off about the impending nomination several hours earlier, hastened to distribute news reports that Raimondo’s firm, Behlen Manufacturing Co. of Columbus, Neb., had laid off 75 U.S. workers in 2002, four months after announcing plans for a $3 million factory in northwest Beijing.
Well, that focused attention, didn’t it? But maybe Bush is a fan of the Joe Kennedy theory of political appointments. Joe Kennedy (JFK’s father) was a notorious Wall Street stock speculator who was nonetheless nominated by FDR to be the first head of the SEC. “It takes a thief to catch a thief,” Roosevelt explained, and he was right. Kennedy did a pretty good job.
But this whole thing still has to be a little embarrassing anyway, doesn’t it? Bush now has a choice: drop Raimondo like a hot potato because he doesn’t need the grief, or demonstrate his iron willed loyalty by refusing to let vile partisan politics get in the way of protecting our nation’s manufacturing base. Which do you think it will be?
