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D
isgraced Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a George W. Bush Pioneer funder, spent last Thursday night in federal lock up. Let's hope his night in jail on fraud charges marks the beginning of a widening investigation. The Department of Justice could do much to restore the public's faith in our system by investigating the rest of the Abramoff gang—including David Safavian, whom President Bush appointed to be Federal Procurement Policy Administrator at the Office of Management and Budget.
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| David Safavian |
I almost had the chance, recently, to warn the Administration in person about the new OMB chief acquisition officer's unsavory associates.
I got a call from someone named Mike who asked whether I could attend a meeting the following Tuesday at the White House with a top Administration official to discuss "domestic policy."
Sure, I said.
Good, said Mike, and he asked me to fax a copy of my ID to him so the secret service could run a background check.
OK, I said, will a matricula consular card be ok?
Mike didn't know, since he is only an intern, so I told him not to worry, I'd fax over my driver's license, and did.
The next day I got another call from the White House disinviting me from the same meeting, which had been cancelled, I was told, on account of the difficulties of making schedules in August.
I was very disappointed.
I had planned to dispense with my part in the meeting very quickly by bringing along a visual aid and suggesting the president tack it up in his bedroom or, if Mrs. Bush objected, out in the garage.
If he just studied and studied the graphic, I was going to argue, eventually he would realize how stupid he sounds when he says things like "family values don't stop at the Rio Grande."
Depending on how that went, I was going to tell what I knew about David Safavian to the "top-ranking official" (almost certainly it wouldn't've been the president, who hasn't liked me since I asked him a numbers-based question in New Hampshire in 2000 [RealVideo (.rm) 1.33MB], but then, I haven't liked him much either.
After I got that out of the way, I was going to spend the rest of the time poking around to see whether I could figure out who it was who called the White House and said they wanted David Safavian, the Norquist-Abramoff lobbyist partner, put in a very powerful position with enormous influence over the federal government's entire procurement activities.
Even more, I'd love to know who it was who picked up the phone and answered and said, "OK."
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