It’s started for Bush — Bickering begins over Defense Secretary’s post

WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 22: The first signs of a fissure between the more moderate wing and the conservative core of the Republican Party hav...

WASHINGTON, DECEMBER 22: The first signs of a fissure between the more moderate wing and the conservative core of the Republican Party have already surfaced. A turf war has begun over several appointments to the Bush Cabinet, notably for the post of Defense Secretary.

The President-elect is being buffeted by the extreme right, which wants the conservative Indiana politician Dan Coats as Defense Secretary, and the more centrist forces which want the Washington intellectual Paul Wolfowitz. The outcome of this tug-of-war may well indicate if Bush is his own man or is a hostage to the party mandarins.

Coats, a former senator, is currently a special counsel with the law firm Verner Liipfert, which counts the Government of India as one of its clients. Ironically, one of his colleagues at the firm is former Texas governor Ann Richards, who lost to George W. Bush in the 1994 elections. The conservative Coats is backed by the weighty Senate leadership led by the majority leader Trent Lott.

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Wolfowitz, on the other hand, is a dean of international studies at Johns Hopkins in Washington and has served as a key DoD official under PresidentsReagan and Bush. An undersecretary for defense under Defense Secretary Cheney, he is now being backed by the vice-president elect.

Initially, Bush is believed to have favoured Coats, but Wolfowitz backers are said to have mounted a strong campaign to press their candidate’s credentials. While the moderate wing says Coats does not have the requisite experience, the conservatives are arguing that Wolfowitz is too much of a “thinker” to handle the DoD’s vast bureaucracy. He has reportedly turned down an offer to be Director of CIA.

There is also the added angle of who would better counter-balance the formidable Secretary of State Gen. Colin Powell.

Several other candidates have now sprung into contention, including former Pentagon officials Richard Armitage and Donald Rumsfeld, and former Air Force Secretary Donald Rice. With the two other principal posts having gone to African-Americans, the prospect of a Democrat being chosen for the job has receded.

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As a result of this struggle, Bush has not been able to name the defense secretary, although he has named the two other principals Secretary of State and National Security Advisor. He has now named candidates for five of the 14 cabinet level posts, and is expected to make a couple of key appointments on Friday.

Among them will be Wisconsin governor Tommy Thomson as either Health Secretary or Transportation Secretary.

But it is the conservatives vs moderates battle that is beginning to occupy centrestage. The party’s right-wing is also upset over the imminent appointment of New Jersey governor Christie Todd Whitman as head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Whitman is a relative moderate and is notably pro-choice. Coats, on the other hand, is an unsparing conservative who has always voted against abortion and for higher defense spending.

A similar battle is on for the post of Attorney General with the conservatives backing Oklahoma governor Frank Keating against the moderate choice of former senator John Danforth.

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Meanwhile, the incoming and outgoing administrations have begun sparring over America’s sudden economic slowdown. Bush has begun to warn the country about the state of the economy, seemingly ready to lay the blame at the doors of the Clinton administration. The White House has responded by suggesting that Bush’s bearish talk is aimed at promoting his massive tax cut and avoiding blame for any future downturn.

“By appearing to be willing to treat the economy as just another political football, they send the wrong signal to the markets about the seriousness with which they take their economic stewardship,” Clinton’s chief economic advisor Gene Sperling said.