Anti-Bush = No Contract with HUD.

The Dallas Business Journal reports:

Once the color barrier has been broken, minority contractors seeking government work may need to overcome the Bush barrier.

That's the message U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson seemed to send during an April 28 talk in Dallas. 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."

Your politics will now disqualify you from being able to do work for the government. The differences between this and disqualifying teachers for being 'Liberal' is only a matter of scale, not of concept. You better believe that there are plenty of people running school boards and county offices across this country that wouldn't hesitate for a moment to fire someone (or disqualify them from getting a job in the first place) because they're anti-Bush.

Of course Bush's approval rating today is less than one-in-three. So finding employees might be difficult.

If it's true that the closer a movement gets to defeat, the greater its demand for lock-step agreement becomes, then Republicanism as espoused by George W. Bush, Karl Rove, etc. is quickly on its way out. Kinda like the fact that only dying empires build walls...

UPDATE: 3:10pm - Think Progress has a bit up on the story:

Jackson’s conduct appears to be in violation of federal law. From the Federal Acquisition Regulations, 48 CFR 3.101-1:

Government business shall be conducted in a manner above reproach and, except as authorized by statute or regulation, with complete impartiality and with preferential treatment for none. Transactions relating to the expenditure of public funds require the highest degree of public trust and an impeccable standard of conduct.

Well, that certainly doesn't seem to be the case here. I won't hold my breath waiting for this to be investigated. I suppose actually seeing this joker get fired for violating federal law is a little too much to hope for.

Alphonso Jackson HUD Partisan