NYPOST

AVOIDING JACKSON IS NOW THE ‘NORM'

By ROD DREHER

April 19, 2001 -- WAS a Bush cabinet official set to break the unofficial administration embargo on relations with Jesse Jackson - until The Post started asking about it?

Could be. According to invitations sent out by Jackson's LaSalle Street Project, Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta - a Democrat who was commerce secretary in the Clinton administration - was a confirmed speaker at next month's Chicago conference.

Conference executive director Darice Wright told me yesterday afternoon that Mineta was definitely going to be there.

Curiously, the White House press office had no idea what was going on when I phoned to ask if Bush had approved this. The Department of Transportation's media reps didn't return repeated phone calls until very late in the day.

The secretary was invited, said spokesman Chet Lunner, "and he and Mr. Jackson apparently had a discussion, but there's a scheduling conflict. He won't be able to make it."

Hmm. Sounds like somebody messed up and got caught.

A top Washington GOP activist who got wind of Mineta's maybe-misstep told other leading Beltway Republicans about it yesterday morning, and said, "They went berserk."

You can be sure those Republicans didn't sit on that information.

Whatever the real story, it's a relief that there will be no administration presence at The LaSalle Street Project conference, a Midwestern version of Jackson's sister schemes on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.

Critics characterize these events as fancy-pants shakedown rackets in which corporations and others afraid of being called racist pay court (and big bucks) to Jackson, who uses the occasions to arrange deals benefiting members of his inner circle.

Having a cabinet official speak at the Chicago event would have given a badly needed PR boost to the flailing Jackson, and a personal coup for the Rev, who has been frozen out by Team Bush.

The transportation secretary's presence would have been a jewel for Jesse, given that Amtrak will likely soon be floating a $12 billion bond issue. There will be fat commissions for Wall Streeters chosen to handle the deal.

Jackson has intervened before to make sure select minority firms - that is, firms run by folks close to him, as distinct from those who don't play his game - have reserved seats on similar gravy trains.

Were the top Amtrak boss there to glad-hand with pinstriped Wall Street beneficiaries of Jackson's past lobbying, the potential for mischief would be all too obvious.

Needless to say, Bush backers would have been none too pleased had a cabinet officer aided and abetted Jackson's lucrative career as a rainmaker for corporate cronies. Bullet dodged. Embarrassment averted.

The Bushies have done a splendid job of keeping the scandal-plagued Jackson sidelined from the corridors of power. It should be clear to Mineta and other cabinet officers that consorting with the roguish Rev is forbidden, scheduling details be damned.

Jackson's continued rude remarks about the president, as well as his ongoing corruption scandals, have ruptured the special relationship he's enjoyed with the White House for eight years. Bush should end it, not mend it.

e-mail: dreher@nypost.com

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001