Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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If I Were a Carpenter ...

Wednesday, January 3, 2001

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latest political news)

The wood has been sawn, sanded, shaped, routed, glued and nailed. The hinges and hardware have been installed. The doors have been hung and the shelves installed. The first coat of finish has been applied, and it's a darned good looking piece.

President-elect George W. Bush built this Cabinet faster than anyone since Norm Abram built one in a half-hour on The New Yankee Workshop.

With yesterday's appointments of Senator Spence Abraham to Energy, Linda Chavez to Labor, and Norm Mineta to Transportation, the Cabinet slots are all filled.

Let's, er, recount: We got insiders. We got outsiders. We got Blacks. We got Women. We got Arabs, Hispanics, Japanese, Italians, Democrats, Republicans, Conservatives, and Moderates. We got people who have been former federal executive branch officials, Members of Congress, military leaders, Governors, state officials, local officials, and business executives.

For all his promises to "make his Cabinet look like America," Bill Clinton couldn't do it. George W. did.

Norm Mineta is a former Democratic Congressman from California and, as you know, is the current Commerce Secretary.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich worked with Congressman Mineta on a number of issues when they were both in the House including Gingrich carrying a good bit of the Republican load on Mineta's bill to provide reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been interned during World War II.

"Norm is the embodiment of a 'New Democrat'," Gingrich said. "He is the model for the kind of Democrat Bush will be able to work with."

Gingrich, by the way, had a fascinating piece on the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday (The Right Recipe for Republicans) in which he said:
"�Both parties have a great deal of thinking to do about their failures to build a solid majority.
"The Democrats took peace and prosperity and a nationally known vice president and were unable to attract rural and suburban white America. The Republicans took a candidate whose record and personal appeal to Hispanic and African-American voters was the most attractive in modern times, yet could only get 33% of the Latino vote and 8% of the African-American vote."

Let me start this next bit by stating the following: I have no access to tickets and I don't know anyone who does.

I am at the Presidential Inaugural Committee helping out; one of over 1,500 people trying to put together a fairly major series of public events starting, from today, in 15 days.

The PIC is in a building just off Capitol Hill directly across the street from the National Air and Space Museum. The building itself has the charming name of FOB 10B. I am told it used to house the Federal Aviation Agency which must have been just about the time wings were invented.

The good news about the foreshortened amount of time available to mount this Inaugural, is there appear to be almost none of the battles for turf which often take up so much of everyone's energy in these sorts of things.

My experience over the last few days has been: If you know what you're talking about and you can make a decision on an issue, make it, and move on. There will be plenty more to make ere the day is out.

I don't think this is a particularly Republican trait so much as I think it is a particularly American trait.

There is a glorious view out offices on the east side of the building which looks directly up the Mall to the Capitol. This is the view which is faked in nearly every television show and most movies about goings on in Washington.

Until I got here I didn't think that view really existed. It does.

At any rate there is a door in the hallway just outside my office marked, "Refuge Area East." With some trepidation, I opened it. It is a stairwell. There is no "Refuge Area West" so I feel, somehow, safer.

To review the bidding, some offices overlook the Capitol. Mine overlooks a stairwell. Got it?

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