Special Bush aide seen as scapegoat

Oct 11, 2006

When Ed Navarra learned that Susan Bonzon Ralston had resigned from her post as a special assistant to President George W. Bush on October 6, his gut feeling was that she was being made a “scapegoat.”

“Someone has to fall on the sword for the emperor and I guess it’s Susan,” Navarra said.

Navarra, the Midwest Region chair of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (Naffaa), immediately dashed off an email to President Bush to express his personal “regrets and dissatisfaction” with Ralston’s resignation from the Bush administration. ”Her departure,” he wrote, “has left a void in our quest for empowerment especially in the Filipino American community and in the Asian Pacific American communities as well.”

It was Navarra who personally invited Ralston to be the keynote speaker at the 6th Naffaa National Empowerment Conference in Chicago in Sept. 10-12, 2004. In her speech to the Naffaa delegates, Ralston talked about how privileged she felt to work on a daily basis with President Bush “who is always working for the interests of the American people”.

When asked at a press conference before her speech if she would be willing to use her White House influence to advocate for the Filipino WW II veterans in their fight for equity, Ralston demurred, declaring “I don’t do policy.”

Documents released last week by the House Government Reform Committee (HGRC) show that Ralston was very much involved in policy but with Karl Rove and Jack Abramoff.

The question arising from her resignation is the identity of the “emperor” that she fell on the sword for.

http://www.philippinenews.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=3d3e95425a922ae2c0142bbe5f55cddd

This must be painful for them.

hire Michelle Malkin.

that was mean, wasn't it?

:evilgrin:

think he's gonna take any personal responsibility? Or make KKKarl fess up to his shennanigans?

She was no damn angel either. She was playing everything and everybody with everything she had. She was a moochin' lyin' sneaking' little Abramoff operative snuggled nice and cozy into OUR White House. Scapegoat or not, I'm glad she's out. She is probably the least sleezy of the many sleezoids leaving a slime trail in our historic presidential office/residence, but leave a slime trail she did.

Ralston was one of the few normal looking people in the bunch. Sort of like the older sister in the Munster Family. I guess power is a powerful drug?

Kick -- for an important article in a publication most people will miss.