Treasury pick has DUI, is dead-beat father

Bush's White House says that it doesn't care that Treasury Secretary nominee John Snow had a 1982 DUI and was involved in a child-support dispute with his ex-wife.

The DUI thing is fair enough. It was 20 years ago, and if Bush disqualified his nominees for being drunken fools on the roads, he would have to disqualify himself and resign. (Now there's an idea...)

But the dead-beat dad thing is unforgiveable. It's funny to see "family values" types suddenly look the other way on an issue of paramount importance.

Snow disclosed that his ex-wife, Frederica Wheeler, sued him in Montgomery County, Md., in March 1988, alleging that he failed to pay child support and other costs associated with the care of his two sons.

Snow said he denied the charges, but the court found he failed to pay child support for his son Ian over a 19-month period and failed to pay Ian's transportation and allowance costs at college.

Snow told the committee that he and his ex-wife settled the dispute in January 1991 "to spare the family the difficulty of a trial."

Ari's defense of Snow on the issue is effectively "Snow thought he did nothing wrong". Great. That's why we have the courts -- the mediate disputes such as these. And the court in question found that Snow had failed to pay child support.

So, how long do you think we'll have to wait before the "family values" crowd rushes to condemn Snow?

Posted January 22, 2003 07:30 AM | Comments (33)