Bill Richardson, Obama’s choice for Commerce Secretary, has resigned before he has even been confirmed. It was another ‘what were you thinking’ appointment by our incoming President. Here is what I mean.
Richardson’s career has been plagued by controversy and bad decisions. In 2000 lawmakers from both sides of the isle called for his resignation as Energy Secretary after security breaches at Los Alamos compromised some of our nation’s most important nuclear secrets. He did not resign.
As Governor of New Mexico, he is known for wasting taxpayer money. He has taken heat from everything from hiring a personal chef at a cost of $60,000 to diverting a national guard Blackhawk from a training mission to pick him up so he could go ride some horses at an investor’s ranch. There was also the unaudited expense account used by the Governor and his staff. Richardson refused to disclose these expenses.
He also showed poor decision making, placing more importance on putting his buddies in government positions rather than quality people. He appointed Paul Donisthorpe to a commission on higher education. Donisthorpe was convicted of vehicular homicide when while driving under the influence he killed a school teacher. Paul was a major financial supporter of Richardson. He appointed Julian Luna as Motor Vehicle Division director, who also had a drunk driving offense on his record. Then his pick for Director of the Adult Probation and Parole Division had to be fired a month after being selected because he had a domestic dispute restraining order against him.
To top all of this off, Gov. Richardson currently is under investigation for a ‘pay to play’ scheme in New Mexico, and yes, this probe was public before Obama selected him as Commerce Secretary.
Knowing all of this, would you have chosen this man for a government office in your administration. Especially since you have promised change to Washington politics. I sure would not have.
Who knows why Obama thought it would be a good idea to have Richardson on his staff, but maybe we can answer the question of why has Richardson suddenly decided to bow out. He said it was because the current investigation will delay the confirmation process and he did not want to do that to this administration. This may be true, but doubtful. Democrats have a strong majority so no person selected by Obama would come under too much scrutiny.
More than likely there has indeed been a dirty deal in New Mexico so he knows there is a possibility of some bad press. And he certainly doesn’t want to be in Washington when that happens.
I don’t know. Maybe there is a good reason for a California company to contribute to Richardson’s political campaign other than that big contract they got….maybe.
{ 1 trackback }
Comments on this entry are closed.