No good deed EVER goes unpunished.

From:
http://martinandrade.blogspot.com/2005/07/secretary-of-state-of-minnesota-mary.html

excerpt:

The ironic thing in all of this is that it was largely because of Mary Kiffmeyer that the Help America Vote Act was funded at all. You might recall that the policy passed, but the funding was opposed by the White House and by Congressional leadership. Minnesota and all states almost got no federal funding, which would have made the Help America Vote Act another unfunded mandate. It was going nowhere until Mary went personally to DC, during a hurricane, to lobby the White House. It was said at the time that DC was a ghost town, except for a skeletal staff at the White House and Mary Kiffmeyer. Afterward, the White House turned around, so did Congressional leadership, and the funding was passed, and political insiders from both sides of the aisle in DC attribute it to the fact that the president was so impressed with Mary's persistence, visiting the White House during a hurricane to lobby for the funding.

The thing that got Kiffmeyer in trouble was nothing other than Kiffmeyer herself. A grandmotherly appearing woman, she has a reputation for being a real snake behind the scenes, but that's just my humble opinion. The fact is she attempted to influence voting by posting signs about terrorism at poling sites, in a clear attempt to play upon something people view as Bush's strength (or did, not so much any more). This was about as innocent as denying Josef Islam entrance into the country, it was sleezy, it was meaningless, and it was pure politics.

PB

Re: PB at July 28, 2005 09:49 PM

> The fact is she attempted to influence
> voting by posting signs about terrorism at
> poling sites, in a clear attempt to play upon
> something people view as Bush's strength

How IS the weather in the fever swamp? Hot today?

I'll assume that you are poking fun, but my reply is simple, she pulled the plug on the posters plan, under pressure by independent voting advocacy groups as partial and intrusive.. so if it's hot in this swamp, there's a lot of people in it. Point being, many folks thought she was being sleezy, and I'm hardly a member of PETA, she's slimy, I've seen her react to questions that were tough in an aggressive and beligerant tone that was both non-responsive and uneccessarily surly, and the reports are if you deign to disagree with her, she'll hatchet you. It was that kind of attitude that got us yellow-cake in Niger, and it's just plain wrong for folks who advocate that high level managers should be free to deal with big issues, listening to their experts, to then say that people like Kiffmeyer, who shoot the messanger, are acceptable. Her management style results in sycophantic politicos afraid to give bad news to an ill informed, intemperate boss. Whatever her political ideals, the implementation of that kind of management is nearly universally bad.

PB