President elect Obama just announced his nomination for Veterans Affairs - Eric Shinseki. Cool, the first Asian American nominee, but my mind is still stuck on the Bill Richardson nomination, the only Latino nomination so far.
There's a petition going around and campaign to protest Richardson's nomination to Commerce. The group details their reasons for opposing the nomination, but I'm left asking as an organizer: What do you want? What are your goals? What is a "win" for you? Are you looking for a Richardson apology? Because that is not a very clear demand in your statement, and for any successful campaign, you must have a clearly stated demand. It shouldn't be buried. Also, Dr. Lee and his family want nothing to do with this campaign. So... I'm very conflicted on this campaign. I guess I'm just ambivalent about it.
As much as I like Bill Richardson, when he was running in the primaries, I said I could never vote for him because of Wen Ho Lee. But now he's not running for president. At the convention, I thought he was good people.
Anyway... I guess my mind is still kinda all over the place on this. Shouldn't I be backing Wen Ho Lee... a Chinese American? Well... he's not even backing this campaign. Why am I totally ok with Richardson's nomination? Is it because I'm not critical enough of Obama? Am I uncomfortable with having a campaign against the lone Latino nominee? Not sure.
I'm leaning more towards the thought that I may have just forgiven him. Forgiveness doesn't need an apology to happen. Plus, whatever Richardson did as Secretary of Energy under Clinton, he was still *under* Clinton, acting on behalf of President Clinton and their team. Strangely, in primary season despite IRA-IRA, "workfare", and Wen Ho Lee, Asian Americans supported Clinton. Are we scapegoating Richardson? Do we really know how much he was acting independently or as a representative of the Clinton administration?
We may never know. I'm going with forgiveness, peace, and moving forward.
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