Posted 1/31/01 A word or two about our new president To the editor: Although President Bush positioned himself as a centrist throughout his campaign, his executive priorities, cabinet appointees, and transition team members paint a different picture. Corporate special interests, big-money donors, and socially conservative concerns are will represented in the Executive branch of government, contrary to the Presidentís talk of national unity, healing, and compassionate conservatism. John Ashcroft, the nominee for Attorney General, is anti-civil rights, anti-affirmative action, and anti-choice to the point of opposing birth control pills and IUDs. Mr. Ashcroftís long record of opposition to major constitutional rights makes him a poor choice to defend them. Gayle Newton, the nominee to head the Department of the Interior, is a registered lobbyist for NL Industries, a paint company currently involved in litigation over 75 toxic waste sites. Despite NL Industriesís terrible track record, Ms. Norton proposes allowing polluters to regulate themselves. National Security advisor Condoleezza Rice and Commerce Department Secretary Don Evans have both been involved in the oil industry: the transition team for the Department of Energy is almost exclusively made up of people working for or affiliated with extractive oil, including Phillips Petroleum, Enron, and Southern California Edison. The transition team for the Department of Health and Human Services includes representatives from Merck, Mutual of Omaha, and the National Association of Health Underwriters; the transition team or the Department of Labor includes only two representatives from organized labor; and so on. These people will exert the influence of big business on government in an unprecedented manner. It is no accident that executive priorities include a $1.3 trillion dollar tax cut that benefits primarily wealthy citizens and big business, opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, and barring a womanís right to abortion via red tape, executive orders, and appointees. I would like to be more optimistic about the new President, but it appears to me that our new government will serve a minority of Americansñparticularly the wealthy and powerful supporters of Mr. Bushñat the expense of the rest of us. Amy Ries North Branch ©Post Review