Incestuous relationships

Shortly after I wrote that column on the “U.S. Senate fiasco” last week, a reader sent me an e-mail. “Charles,” wrote the reader, I “can’t think of anyone else around here who would have immediately grasped the point of the Lynn Knight [KMCV] transcript . . . There are those at the Governor’s office who seem to grasp the irony of paying Lynn from public coffers while she publicly dumps on them as the Chamber honcho.”

The reader was, of course, referring to the Lynn Knight quotes I used in lamenting the failures of our local leadership in fighting a U.S. federal takeover attempt. As you may recall, Ms. Knight characterized the CNMI government as “largely reactionary.” She said that we were not doing enough. She also basically implied that the administration was not sufficiently proactive in dealing with the federal problem.

Of course, Ms. Knight was absolutely right on all counts. The local government has failed miserably. The proof is in the recent U.S. Senate federal takeover bill, which was passed without even a single dissenting vote.

Contrary to the reader’s interpretation, I did not actually intend to highlight the seeming irony or hypocrisy in Ms. Knight’s statements on KMCV news: namely, that she was criticizing the very government that employs her to do such public relations work in the first place. After all, it might not be fair to blame Ms. Knight for the recent federal fiasco; she was only contracted last December–hardly enough time for her to accept substantial responsibility for the U.S. Senate vote. Even in her private sector capacity, we have to remember that she only became the Chamber President fairly recently.

So, if anything, Ms. Knight should actually be commended for her tremendous honesty, candor, and courage. She simply stated the facts as they existed. Our government has indeed failed to aggressively tackle the federal takeover problem head on. Only now are our Republican leaders belatedly scrambling to proactively prevent a disastrous federal takeover of our islands’ local immigration and minimum wage controls.

Although I personally do not agree with the government’s decision to let Sunset Advertising do the Public Information Officer’s job of writing press releases and such, I have to admit that Ms. Knight did not act improperly. In candidly speaking out, she clearly did not allow her apparent conflict of interests (her roles as both government contractor and Chamber President) to unduly muzzle her dire assessment of the facts.

Unfortunately, some observers cannot say the same for her colleague in the Chamber–attorney David Wiseman, the chairman of the Chamber’s Government Relations Committee, who reportedly puts his judicial ambition before the legislative needs of the Committee he chairs. All he allegedly cares about is getting to be a judge.
According to one confidential informant, “He’s the reason we have some of our troubles with particular legislation. He’d rather make friends in his own interest than do the right thing. Dave’s reaction should have been that we’ll do an even better job now, but instead he voiced concern that it would cause difficulty (read cut into his quest to succeed).” Wiseman, who was always so eager to avert a federal takeover, is curiously silent on the government’s failure to protect us in the U.S. Senate–even in his Chamber capacity.

Fortunately, Ms. Knight did the right thing again: she nominated Richard Pierce to co-chair the committee.