Over at TVNewsday, Harry A. Jessell writes:
I don’t like the way the new FCC is shaping up. There’s something missing.
My concern has nothing to do with Julius Genachowski, whom the president has reportedly tapped for chairman….
What I’m having trouble with are the names popping up for the Republican seat….
All [the rumored candidates] work or used to work on Capitol Hill. They are basically experts on policymaking, crafting legislation and Washington politics, but not much else.
The seat is turning into a reward for loyalty and a test of whose boss has the most clout.
Bad idea.
As the professed champion of business, the Republicans should award the seat to a businessman or a businesswoman.
I’m talking about somebody who has actually done some hiring and firing, made a payroll in tough times, sweated a big sale, produced goods or services, acquired another company, got a loan to expand operations or survive a downturn and struggled to untangle and comply with federal regulations.
There’s a double standard here.
Ajit Pai, for example, who is one of the Republican candidates, is Deputy General Counsel of the FCC. He served as Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Constitution, Senior Counsel at the Office of Legal Policy at the U.S. Department of Justice, Deputy Chief Counsel of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, an Honors Program trial attorney in the Telecommunications Task Force at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and a law clerk to Judge Martin L.C. Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. He graduated with honors from Harvard College and from the University of Chicago Law School, where he was an editor of the University of Chicago Law Review.
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