Cult of Cronyism

Shorter Alphonso Jackson, HUD Secretary: "Kneel before Zod or face my wrath!"

Jackson, a former president and CEO of the Dallas Housing Authority, was among the featured speakers at a forum sponsored by the Real Estate Executive Council, a national minority real estate consortium.

After discussing the huge strides the agency has made in doing business with minority-owned companies, Jackson closed with a cautionary tale, relaying a conversation he had with a prospective advertising contractor.

"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."

They really have no idea what government is all about, do they? You can't deny a federal contract to somebody because he doesn't like the President. Just like you can't deny a job to a lobbyist if he's a Democrat (which is the entire point of the K Street Project). They continue to act like arrogant pricks, demanding loyalty, stifling dissent, and then they somehow dismiss any criticism as partisan bickering, which is their entire mode of governing. They see everything in terms of partisanship.