Maureen Dowd's column today quotes Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) regarding Wall Street bonuses:
Senator Chuck Grassley urged the administration to snatch back the bonuses. "They ought to give ’em back or we should go get ’em," the Republican told me. "If this were Japan and a corporate executive did what is being done on Wall Street, they’d either go out and commit suicide or go before the board of directors and the country and take a very deep bow and apologize."
He was shocked to learn that the Office of Management and Budget, insistent on following the Paperwork Reduction Act, was dragging down a special inspector general’s investigation of what banks are doing with taxpayer money. (After complaints, the O.M.B. yielded on Friday.)
"Once in a while, some C.E.O. comes and talks to me and I wonder if they’re laughing under their breath at having to talk to someone who makes 1 percent of what they make," he said.
If we must have a Republican as Secretary of Commerce, why not Grassley?
From a sneaky-ha-ha-we-have-60-you-losers point of view, Grassley works splendidy. Iowa's Governor is Chet Culver, who is a solid no-BS Democrat. His likely choices to replace Grassley would be one of Iowa's three Democratic congressmen: Bruce Brailey, Dave Loebsack or Leonard Boswell. Brailey would be the best choice from a 2010 point of view. Boswell is an old semi-unreliable D who's getting old and would probably just be a placeholder.
Make no mistake, Grassley is a conservative Republican. Frankly, I'd rather have liberal populists in the cabinet. But maybe having a Republican populist wouldn't be so bad. Grassley has a great bullshit-detector, and when he sees bureaucratic mendacity, he's not afraid to say, "I call bullshit." (Ok, he never uses those actual words, but rather uses the Senatorial-doublespeak equivalent).
Imagine Grassley being in a meeting with Obama and Rahm and some bullshit thing comes up, and Grassley raises his hand and says, "I call bullshit." Everyone else would be pretty damn embarrassed, because if a conservative Republican is calling bullshit, as opposed to a goofy token left-winger, they would have to listen.
Grassley and Obama are both from Midwestern states and share a common language and sensibilities.
Iowa already has one secretary, former governor Tom Vilsack at Agriculture. But Iowa made Obama the front-runner, whereas New Hampshire nearly destroyed him.
If Grassley runs again in 2010, he wins. It's that simple. I know there are polls that indicate some Grassley weakness, but only a patsy or a damn fool would run against the most respected Iowan Republican politician of the last 30 years. For Grassley, being Secretary of Commerce would be the fitting end of a long, distinguished career. (Yeah, even conservative R's can have distinguished careers, at least for an R.)