Thursday, August 14, 2003
THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S REVOLVING DOOR
Out With the Convicted, In With the Fixated
It’s often a good thing when someone leaves the Bush administration. Case in point: The unlamented departure -- by resignation, alas, he should have been fired -- of John M. Poindexter.
It was Poindexter, you will recall, who aspired during his tenure to collect just about everything about just about everybody, the better, I assume, to engage in particularly astute terrorism-futures trading through that brilliant scheme known as “FutureMap.”
Poindexter’s resignation from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency takes effect on August 29.
So, it’s out with Poindexter . . . And in with Daniel Pipes.
Based on God only knows whose recommendation -- possibly Pipes’s own -- the Bush administration earlier this year unsuccessfully sought to appoint Pipes to board of the U.S. Institute of Peace.
Pipes’s paper trail, which is a mile long and a millimeter thin, sparked considerable criticism of the proposed appointment in Washington, including in the Senate, which confirms nominees to the Peace Institute’s board of directors.
No matter. Forget “advise and consent.” According to the Philadelphia Inquirer (“Phila. Scholar Set to Join Peace Board,” by Thomas Ginsberg, Pipes is in:
Congressional sources told Reuters news agency yesterday that Bush intends to install Pipes as early as this week using a recess appointment. That means Pipes could serve without Senate approval, but only for about 16 months rather than for a full, four-year term.
A White House spokesman, Jimmy Orr, declined to confirm the report, saying only: “When we have something to announce, we'll announce it.”
And in what surely must be a first, the Inquirer reports: “Pipes declined to comment.”
Maybe someone could explain the point of adding Pipes to the board for 16 months rather than a four-year term. Yet another enhancement to the resume of which Pipes is so inordinately proud? A little something -- still more, really -- for the “oh we’re really not very influential” neoconservative crowd?
[Post-publication addendum: The membership of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace is, to be fair, reasonably balanced, but it’s hardly lacking representation from the neoconservative contingent, to wit: Chester A. Crocker and Seymour Martin Lipset, chairman and vice chairman of the USIP, respectively, and Harriet Zimmerman.]
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JAMES MARTIN CAPOZZOLA
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James Martin (Jim) Capozzola launched The Rittenhouse Review in April 2002, TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse, HorowitzWatch, and Smarter Andrew Sullivan in July 2002, and Bulldogs for Kerry-Edwards in October 2004. He is also a contributing member of President Boxer.
He received the 2002 Koufax Award for Best Post> for "Al Gore and the Alpha Girls" (published November 25, 2002). Capozzola's record in the Koufax Awards includes two additional nominations for 2002 (Best Blog and Best Writing), three nominations for 2003 (Best Blog, Best Series, and Best Writing), and two finalist nominations in 2004 (Best Blog and Best Writing).
Capozzola’s experience beyond the blogosphere includes a lengthy career in financial journalism, securities analysis, and investment research, and in freelance writing, editing, ghost-writing, and writing instruction.
He earned his bachelor's degree in political science from the University at Albany and a master's in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.
Capozzola lives in Philadelphia with his bulldog, Mildred.
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