A reader writes to tell The Rittenhouse Review that Linda Chavez won the "Whopper of the Week" from Slate on January 24, 2002.

Appearing on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports" on January 9, 2002, Linda Chavez, President George W. Bush's first choice for Secretary of Labor, said, a full year after her nomination hit the skids: "I think organized labor, I think quite mistakenly, somehow thought that I was going to be their worst nemesis. I had a very nice talk with John Sweeney this morning, by the way, and I don't think ... that would have been the case. I think I would have actually been very helpful in trying to bridge a gap that exists between the Republican Party and organized labor."

But just a few months earlier, after the tragedy of September 11, Linda Chavez signed a fund-raising letter for an entity she founded called "Stop Union Political Abuse."

A few quotes from her appeal for funds:

"My name is Linda Chavez. You may remember me as President George W. Bush's original choice for Secretary of Labor. . . . Big Labor Bosses like the AFL-CIO's John Sweeney pulled out all the stops to defeat my nomination. After all, members of the media were calling me 'Big Labor's Worst Nightmare.' "

"And they were right! I'm completely opposed to the special privileges given to Big Labor unions[,] powers that no other private organizations have."

"AFL-CIO boss John Sweeney is an avowed Socialist, by his own admission. [Ed.: "Avowed . . . by his own admission." Did Chavez write that herself? We hope so. We would prefer not to learn that a writer was paid to assemble that train-wreck of a sentence.] And he's put BILLIONS into pushing the Socialist agenda. . . . We can cripple liberal politics in this country by passing the Workers' Freedom of Choice Act."

Chavez's cheery, totally irrelevant, and disgracefully pandering send-off: "If we stop now, the terrorists win."