HUD Chief Has A 'Disconnect' With Democracy

Alphonso Jackson: Kissin' Up To 'Da Man
Originally uploaded by wonderbread74.

FIRE TOKEN SECRETARY NOW!

If Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Alphonso Jackson really did withhold a government contract because of the applicants political beliefs against President Bush then the Republic's future is in doubt.

The story on the Raw Story website and the calls for an investigation by two Democratic Senators is troubling on many fronts. So much so that it may encompass everything that many feels is wrong with our government since Bush took office five years ago.

Is the procedure for gaining access to the Republican controlled leadership in Washington so brazen that the HUD Secretary feels comfortable enough to volunteer this story?

"He had made every effort to get a contract with HUD for 10 years," Jackson said of the prospective contractor. "He made a heck of a proposal and was on the (General Services Administration) list, so we selected him. He came to see me and thank me for selecting him. Then he said something ... he said, 'I have a problem with your president.'

"I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I don't like President Bush.' I thought to myself, 'Brother, you have a disconnect -- the president is elected, I was selected. You wouldn't be getting the contract unless I was sitting here. If you have a problem with the president, don't tell the secretary.'

"He didn't get the contract," Jackson continued. "Why should I reward someone who doesn't like the president, so they can use funds to try to campaign against the president? Logic says they don't get the contract. That's the way I believe.

This backward logic somehow made sense to this African-American Secretary of the HUD. It never crossed Jackson's mind that this sort of patronage afflicts blacks and many minorities everyday?

Above all, these sort of comments from a high-ranking government official should cause the highest alarm among Americans. What Jackson did is clear-cut political censorship and should not be tolerated in the least bit before it becomes the de facto law of the land.

A Defense Secretary who incompetently leads the military into quagmire is deemed a patriot, but a little-known black secretary of the HUD who says stupid things is easily expendable.