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PAGE 10A - FORSYTH COUNTY NEWS W»dn<»d«y, April 21,2004 Opinion 9/11 panelist called nonpartisan, gave heavily to Dems WASHINGTON Jamie Gorelick, the Clinton adminis tration lawyer defended as a wholly nonpartisan member of the independent commission investigating the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has contributed more heavily to political candidates almost all Democrats than any other commissioner. Government records show Gorelick. President Clinton's deputy attorney general, donat ing at least $32,500 to federal candidates since 1998. Only $4,250 of that total went to Republicans. She gave the max imum $2,000 to Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign last year when he was struggling. The commission chairman, former Republican New Jersey- Gov. Tom Kean, defended borelick last Friday after House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner called for her resignation. Sensenbrenner contended Gorelick had disqual ified herself by constructing in 1995 the wall between the FBI and the CIA under attack by the commission. Kerry’s discretion Sources close to Sen. John Kerry say he still feels the pain of being passed over for vice president four years ago and wants to avoid inflicting that punishment on any body else as he picks his own running mate. Kerry was announced as a contestant in 2000 as Al Gore held a public competition for vice president. Sens. Joe Lieberman and John Edwards ended up as the finalists, with Kerry eliminated early after being led to believe he had a real shot to be Gore's choice. With Kerry determined not to mislead anybody, no list of prospects has been put out. Unofficial lists come from peo ple who are not close to the pre sumptive presidential nominee and do not know his mind. Kerry’s mistake Prospecting among thou sands of words uttered by John Kerry. Republican researchers spotted gold Tuesday in a Washington Post op-ed column by the prospective Democratic presidential nominee that attempted a non-partisan approach to Iraq. "(W)e are seeing increasing numbers of Iraqis." Kerry wrote, "lashing out at the United States to express their frustration over what the Bush administration has and hasn't done." The unfortunate word was "frustration," which Republicans say Kerry applied • , . CARTOONISTS'VIEWS ON THE NEWS ; DILBUSUI so w Cornyn colleges m wt a youbusiness isms... r? 7 i* r? 7 T t \5 JalzLMI FOR M ECONOMY WE WX DC TWICE THE ™ W FOR NO EXTRX MONEY 4!! WEEPING I CoffivilOH ' <p?y a. LkJ ZD' H rl UT Vs?li ffl I bW 1 H \ \\ \ wii ivi io ti m Robert Novak yr to the Iraqi fighters who are murdering Americans. That will be used repeatedly against the Democratic candidate. Kerry has taken a less com bative posture on Iraq since he clinched the nomination, anger ing some anti-war Democrats. Describing the "frustration" of Iraqi gunmen, therefore, was a mistake rather than a calculated strategy. Karen for governor? Following her impressive performance on NBC's "Meet the Press" April 4. Bush adviser Karen Hughes’s friends and supporters in both Washington and Texas started quietly boost ing her for governor of Texas in 2006. Gov. Rick Perry, who suc ceeded to the governorship in 2(X.X) w hen Gov. George W. Bush became president, has indicated he will seek another term. But Perry has many ene mies, and the w ord in Texas political circles is that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison could chal lenge him for the Republican nomination. Conservative activists do not consider Hughes one of them and are not talking about her for governor. However. Republican insiders who are not fond of either Perry or Hutchison are starting to pro mote Hughes, a former televi sion journalist who never has run for public office. Senate strategies Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, facing Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle's ultima tum that could block all of President Bush's judicial nomi nations. is considering a tough counter-strategy. Daschle has threatened to prevent any vote on 45 proposed federal judges unless the president "gives assurance" that he will not make any more recess appoint ments. Frist is being urged to file cloture petitions, which will cut off debate and force a vote on each of the 45 stalled judges. If Democratic disci pline holds as it has in the past, none of the judges will get the 60 votes needed to impose cloture. However. Democrats may get the blame for preventing the Senate from doing business. Robert Novak is a nation ally syndicated columnist. IWKOAMO WESKEHWCWHS ■II FBHNASWM Too MW 9/lIIBWG. I ATTACK COE _ , J W TOE I CENTER? I .(*k I v c 111 t 1 ti cXrßffifia fffT* v\ / f ? Vs i S I ' ~~ i r%. I I Is An offer Regents could not refuse To paraphrase a line from "The Godfather," Thomas Meredith made the Board of Regents an offer it couldn't refuse. Either the regents pay University System Chancellor Meredith the SIBO,OOO they owed him, or else. What did the "or else" mean? Meredith would walk out as Georgia's chancellor, move to Tennessee or some other state thirsting for his tal ents, and leave our regents with a deserved reputation as deadbeats. So what were the regents to do? Pay up. of course, but come out as bad guys anyway. Word still leaked that Meredith had to play hardball to get his money. When he got it. he demanded and received interest too. At the time the re gents/trustees hired Meredith in 2001, they agreed to a secret pact to sweeten his pay check in SIBO,OOO increments to be paid annually. The deal blew up when the re gents/trustees welched on the final installment. The Meredith episode adds to a feeling among many Georgians that the state's sys tem of higher education has fallen under a dark spell. The regents and trustees have con fused "independence" with "secrecy" in administering the public’s business. Independent or not, the University System should strive for transparency in near ly every transaction. A breach of faith with the public is implicit in its sour deal with Bill .XI Shipp Meredith. But there’s more. In a vain attempt to save face, individual members of the Board of Regents reached into their pockets and ponied up the delinquent dollars for the chancellor’s deferred com pensation package. Meredith, with his entire $480,450 annu al paycheck intact, unpacked his bags, settled back in his $2 million rent-free mansion and grandly announced he would n't be going to another state after all. His conditions for continued employment in Georgia had been met. Meredith's decision to go public with an out-of-state job offer to force the regents' hand approaches our definition of extortion. However, to accuse the chancellor of such behavior may not be quite fair. He could have been even tougher in his collection tactics. He could have hired someone to threaten to break the regents' legs. Making the chancellor’s paycheck whole raises more questions. What are the names of the generous souls who coughed up the additional ducats? And how much did each contribute to maintaining Meredith in the lifestyle to which he has become accustomed? The University System ST. parciCK DRIVING I ■wie out fIBH OP IRISH PUBS. xftx. nß'Vk. i'® 'l>■ I Jrm I SJk U I Bow 3 rwv R l# ™ VMTi—KS -«*»•.-. -. yrs/ w Z"^ 5 Nkl\«t4lkWjL) BUJt - «mul k3i fkblArQiM refuses to say. The University System Board of Trustees has hired a silk-stocking Atlanta lawyer. Jack Schroder, to inform the public that the trustees will not identify the people who privately pay state employee Tom Meredith. Dr. Jan Kentwell, executive director of the University System of Georgia Foun dation. informs us: "On the advice of our attorney, Mr. Jack Schroder, I must respect fully decline to provide you with names of individual donors. The Open Records Act specifically exempts from dis closure any records which are otherwise prohibited by law from being open to inspection by the general public." That decision raises still another question, to wit: If Mystery Regent X contributed SIO,OOO to Meredith and Mystery Regent Y gave $50,000, does that mean the chancellor is more beholden to Regent Y than to Regent X? In other words, who is the chan cellor's boss of bosses among the regents and trustees? If the Meredith mess could be written off as a single inci dent of poor judgment, most Georgians could simply snick er and move on. But it is emblematic of a growing pat tern of secret deals and broken (or misunderstood) promises made to high-level university system administrators. Example: The genesis of the still-simmering controver sy involving UGA President Michael Adams and exiting Athletics Director Vince Dooley can be traced to the shifty behavior of the regents and some University of Georgia trustees (not to be confused with University System trustees). Luckily for UGA, several of its trustees demanded anti septic sunshine on their actions, which prevented UGA from becoming totally infect ed by infighting between aca demics and athletics. Too bad the regents can’t follow the Bulldogs’ example and come clean about every aspect of the Thomas Meredith affair. Georgia doesn't have much to brag about, but its system of higher education has improved steadily over the years. Because of past-enlightened leadership, we are in a region al league with Virginia and North Carolina instead of Mississippi and Alabama. And. nationally. Georgia Tech comes close to keeping us on a par with MIT and Caltech. Now the regents struggle with providing Tyco-type perks to top executives, while its institutions' staff and much of the faculty are paid rock bottom wages and. in some cases, face layoffs. The Meredith debacle sug gests we have slipped because we have lost our leadership compass and ability to put learning ahead of gold-plated grandiosity in establishing pri orities in public higher educa tion. Bill Shipp's column appears each Wednesday and Sunday. His e-mail address is bshipp@ bellsouth.net.