|
|
| |
| Thu, Dec. 4, 2008 |  |
 |
|
||
| |
Lazy? Says who? Saturday, Jun 16, 2007 By John Brummett "Bud Cummins." "Are you busy?" "Just taking a morning nap." Thus began the telephone conversation Wednesday with former U.S. Attorney Bud Cummins of Little Rock. He was the loyal Republican just revealed in the morning press as having been considered "lazy" by a woman in Karl Rove's hatchet shop - uh, political operation - in the White House. Cummins was making a sardonic joke about this odd predicament of having his work habits commented upon unfavorably from no less than the inner sanctum of the president, and a president of his own party. Here's how his predicament came to be: Cummins was seemingly a perfectly fine George Bush-nominated U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas. That was until late last year when the Justice Department asked him to step aside. It was so that Tim Griffin, a Rove operative from Magnolia, could take Cummins' job without the little constitutional obligation of Senate confirmation hearings. Democrats probably would have made a stink about Griffin's trying to keep certain black people from voting in certain elections, that having been a Rovian duty. Controversy ensued about this and several other U.S. attorney ousters. The issue was whether Bush and his people had over-politicized the federal justice system by finagling these federal prosecutorial changes on a basis encompassing, at least in a couple of instances, whether Republicans had been spared prosecution and Democrats targeted for same. Cummins behaved as the good soldier, likening himself to a pitcher being taken out by the manager. But then someone from the Justice Department, trying to wiggle out of trouble at a congressional hearing, said publicly that Cummins' ouster was for performance reasons, unspecified. Cummins got his back up. He demanded and extracted a retraction from the attorney general. But, thereafter, Cummins tended to talk a tad more freely and independently with reporters and to Senate committees. Whenever there is controversy encompassing congressional inquiries, as in this matter, congressional investigators tend to subpoena reams of information. From time to time, this solicited information gets released. "Document dumps," they're called. There was a document dump Tuesday. It included e-mails from Sara Taylor, White House political director, meaning prominent Rovian. One of hers, dated Feb. 16 and sent to one of those interchangeable and forgettable Justice Department political appointees, had her lamenting that Griffin was being hung out to dry by Justice Department mishandling. She added in this e-mail: "Bud runs a campaign and (Deputy Attorney General Paul) McNulty refuses to say Bud is lazy, which is why we got rid of him in the first place." I phoned Cummins, not to ask whether he was lazy, that often being a matter of opinion. A relaxed manner, which he tends to possess, might sometimes be mistaken for shiftlessness. Instead I asked Cummins to help me figure out how a woman working as political director in the Bush White House might have come to hold such a solid opinion on his work habits from nearly a thousand miles away. He professed to have no idea. As federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Arkansas, he had no direct contact with the White House. He did have dealings with the Justice Department, and maybe somebody there held that opinion. But he said that no one ever said anything, and, in fact, he was called on for special work for a case in Missouri and to lend expert consultation to U.S. Sens. Mark Pryor and Blanche Lincoln on the Patriot Act. There was no one who'd had the joint experience of working both for Cummins and the White House, except for, well, Tim Griffin himself, who toiled a few months under Cummins in Little Rock in 2002, and later for Rove. Cummins said he couldn't imagine Griffin's spreading such a slur inside the White House to try to get his job. I resisted the urge to ask if he was still napping. This is mostly moot, thank goodness. Congress removed Bush's ability to let any unconfirmed nominee serve indefinitely. Griffin has resigned. Cummins is in the private sector, where his work ethic can be judged under fairer standards by more credible sources. -------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
