Who's Who.

• Author: THREADGILL, SUSAN
• Position: Actions of Republican and Democratic officials - Brief Article

Republicans are starting to whisper that Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill might be on the way out in another year or so, perhaps to be replaced by Larry Lindsey, currently chairman of the National Economic Council. O'Neill has publicly expressed doubt that big tax cuts will stimulate the economy and forestall a recession. Lindsey, on the other hand, is an abiding believer in the gospel of supply-side economics.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been known as a ruthlessly skilled bureaucrat since the Gerald Ford administration, when he killed off one of Henry Kissinger's arms control treaties. But his management style seems to be rubbing people the wrong way these days. It was widely noted in the Pentagon, for instance, that when a Navy submarine commanded by Scott Waddle inadvertently sank a Japanese fishing vessel in February, Rumsfeld didn't go before the press to accept the tough questioning. When the White House and Capitol Hill reacted angrily to a Pentagon order halting all military-to-military contact with the Chinese, Rumsfeld again skirted blame and claimed his orders had been misinterpreted by Christopher Williams, the aide who wrote the memo.

His most damaging subterfuge has been keeping Congress uninformed about the progress of his "top-to-bottom" Pentagon strategy review. Senate Republicans, including Majority Leader Trent Lott, have shown their anger by stalling the confirmation of some of Rumsfeld's proposed aides.

It looks like former Congressman James Rogan, a House impeachment manager whom the DNC successfully targeted for defeat last year, has made a savvy career move. Rogan had been thinking of running for the seat that was expected to be vacated by his fellow California Republican, Rep. Christopher Cox, who was expecting to be nominated to the federal court of appeals. But Rogan foresaw that Cox's nomination would run into trouble because of fierce opposition from California's two Democratic Senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. And indeed Cox's name was conspicuously absent from the list of 10 court nominees the White House announced in mid-May.

So instead Rogan has accepted an invitation by the Bush Administration to be Commerce Department undersecretary for patents and trademarks. It's a big job because the regulation of intellectual property is increasingly vital to high-growth sectors of the economy such as the biotechnology industry (see "Gene Blues" by Nicholas Thompson in our April 2001 issue)...