In a little noticed ceremony yesterday, Jeb Bush assured the world that Florida will once again take the lead role in election shenanigans in 2006. The Banana Republic lives.
Coral Gables businesswoman Sue Cobb, a former U.S. ambassador to Jamaica, said Wednesday that she would put aside personal interests and abide by the rule of law in her new job as Florida's secretary of state, which includes overseeing elections.
Gov. Jeb Bush announced her appointment at a news conference with Cobb, 68, who also served as interim lottery secretary in 1999.
http://www.theledger.com/...
The current Sec of State is Glenda Hood, prior to her the officeholder was, ahem...Katherine Harris, currently in the House of Reps and running for Senate in Florida.
So Sue Cobb is going to "put aside personal interests"??
Is Vegas taking odds on this yet 'cause I want in on that one...
Payback is of course expected. The Florida Secretary of State position is an appointed one, and the elected Governor gets to pick the best person for the job. Our newly appointed Ms. Cobb, besides being former Ambassador to Jamaica, former head of the Florida Lottery, is a lawyer, developer, and BIG TIME Bush Family Fund Raiser. During the 2000 election, enormous amounts of money were quickly raised in Florida and contributed to the Republican efforts to end the recount; Ms. Cobb's been linked to John Bolton and others ground troops in Florida who helped create the fiasco that led to the selection of President George Bush by the Supreme Court
There are some very interesting links below to follow and peruse, I'm posting one of the more interesting here:
I was a little startled to read that US ambassador, Mrs Sue Cobb, referred to President Aristide as Humpty Dumpty, and suggesting that as far as she was concerned, there was no point in even thinking that he and his people had any rights worth protecting.
What happened had happened, and the rest of us had better get over it, move on and accept the arbitrament of the gunmen and the State Department apparatchiks. Mrs Cobb, an attorney at law, should realise that her remark was not only gratuitously undiplomatic but ferociously offensive
In a long interview with the editor of this newspaper, Mrs Cobb made her position absolutely clear. She represents President Bush and is totally committed to him. Bush, she asserted, would in due time be vindicated. Meanwhile, she would follow her orders.
I am not sure what Mr Bush will be vindicated about, but Iraq and pre-emptive war will not be among them.
And I think Mrs Cobb was somewhat disingenuous in not explaining her connection to the American President.
Various American journalists describe Mrs Cobb, somewhat offhandedly, as a "Coral Gables developer" . She is more than that.
Mrs Cobb was the first head of the Florida Lottery, having been appointed to that position by Governor Jeb Bush, brother of th President. She herself is a lawyer, general counsel and managing director of Cobb Partners, a resort property development company.
Mrs Cobb and her husband are also integral and important players in Florida politics. During the 2000 Presidential election campaign, the Cobbs hosted George and Jeb Bush at a fundraising function in the Cobb's home and raised more than US$1 million for the election.
According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, " Together, Sue and Charles Cobb make quite a generous duo. Sue Cobb contributed $52,500 to Republican candidates and party committees in 1999-2000, including a $1,000 donation to the Bush campaign and a $40,000 soft money contribution to an RNC state elections committee. She also gave $5,000 to the 2000 Bush/Cheney Presidential Transition Foundation.
"Charles Cobb, the ambassador to Iceland during the administration of President Bush's father, was more generous than she. He gave $71,750 to the GOP in 1999-2000, including $1,000 to Bush and a $40,000 soft money to the same RNC state elections committee, on the same date, as his wife. He also contributed $5,000 to the Bush-Cheney Florida recount fund. Like his wife, he contributed $5,000 to the Bush/Cheney transition foundation."
Mrs Cobb's contribution to Mr Bush and his cause did not stop there. According to a Democratic party website which maintains that the Florida election was stolen by the Republicans: - "Nearly $14 million magically poured into the Bush/Cheney Florida recount effort - four times the amount raised by the Gore/Lieberman camp. The money flowed in so fast... that Bush campaign officials... were dumbfounded... The Bush campaign took in $13.8 million, most in large contributions.
Listed among those large contributors were Bush and Cheney's two most reliable genies - Enron and Halliburton... As soon as a recount was announced, Bush forces moved quickly. Money was no object. They dispatched over 100 lawyers to Florida and Texas, booking hundreds of plane tickets, rental cars and hotel rooms. Among the expenditures listed was a payment of $13,000 to Enron Corp. and $2,400 to Halliburton Co. for the use of their corporate jets and other unspecified services. 'Eighteen months after the election, we find that the (Bush) administration literally flew into office on the Enron corporate jet,'" said the DNC. All the Bush scandals are coming together ..."
In addition to those contributions, and according to the Miami Herald "During the Florida recount, "John Bolton, [now] undersecretary of state for arms control, [burst] into a Tallahassee library on behalf of the Bush-Cheney campaign to stop a recount of Miami-Dade County ballots. Matt Schlapp, a former congressional aide, is currently White House special assistant to the president and deputy director of political affairs. In November 2000, he was part of the supposedly spontaneous window-pounding protest at Miami-Dade County Hall that brought to an end the first recount of Miami-Dade ballots. Sue Cobb, a Coral Gables developer, today is the US. ambassador to Jamaica. Twenty months ago, the generous Republican donor volunteered ... as part of the legal team that contested recounts in Miami-Dade. [These three] are among more than 50 political appointees found by The [Miami] Herald to have served as troops in the frantic Florida recount battle that followed the Nov. 7, 2000 election."
With such a substantial investment of time, money, effort and emotion in the Bush campaign, it would be unfair to expect Mrs Cobb to be objective about George Bush.
I can well imagine how she feels about me.
The Florida election sticks in my craw, not simply because of the caveman tactics used to stop the recount, but because no recount would probably have been necessary if there had not been the wholesale disfranchising of black people which the Jeb Bush administration carried out before the election. If you have forgotten, the Florida State government hired computer specialists to `purge' the Florida voters lists of ineligible voters. What actually happened was the disfranchisement of thousands of blacks in Florida who were "mistakenly" identified as felons ineligible to vote. Since blacks in the United States tend to vote solidly for Democratic candidates (more than 90% for Al Gore and Bill Clinton) any number of blacks removed from the list improved the chances of George Bush.
I have no idea whether Mrs Cobb was as involved in the pre-election activities of the Florida Republicans as she was in their post-election activities, but, as she is a lawyer, it would seem to me that she may have owed a duty to justice which she did not fulfil.
http://www.nathanielturner.com/...
http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/...
http://www.opensecrets.org/...
http://www.findarticles.com/...
http://www.kathleenbush.com/...
http://www.extralove.com/...
http://www.slate.com/id/2105524/