In the Shadows

Early in the Nixon administration, John Mitchell (who later became the first Attorney-General to go to jail) made the all-too-revealing quip, "Watch what we do, not what we say." The comment bears remembering. Much of the evil that the Bush administration does is carried out beyond the spotlight, often in the form of government regulations and rulings from administrative agencies that have been packed with loyalists ready to carry the administration's water.

Case in point: Sometime in the near future, the National Labor Relations Board is expected to rule that thousands of registered nurses are working as managers and so are ineligible to be part of unions. The logic of the ruling could affect a large number of industries, forcing foremen, for instance, into management and--not coincidentally--further hollowing out unions.

The idea of a National Labor Relations Board that is anti-union may seem like a contradiction in terms; the agency, after all, was created in the 1930's to bring some balance to labor-management relations. But for the Right everything is political and there is no overarching public good that transcends partisan interest. I am hopeful that the political climate is changing and that the purveyors of this cramped view of public policy will pay a price at the polls for it, but even if they are thrown out, many years will pass before new regulations and the appointment of new members to agencies, boards and commissions can undo the harm that we have suffered already.