JACKSON - Looking at the lineup of four white, male, mostly 60-something Barbour administration appointees named last Friday, several to head socially sensitive state agencies, two thoughts immediately came to mind:
- So much for racial and sexual inclusiveness, so glibly promised by Haley Barbour in the recent gubernatorial campaign.
- If this is "compassionate conservatism" handed down by the high totems of Republicanism to their man in Mississippi, then there are tough times ahead for the many thousands of poor and disadvantaged who populate this state.
Two of the four white men named Friday will take the places of blacks who headed the same agencies in the outgoing Musgrove administration.
For Barbour to bring back Lt. Col. Don Taylor, the heel-clicking, spit-and-polish ex-military guy to run Human Services, the state's welfare agency, is the crowning insult to Mississippi's masses of have-nots.
Taylor is remembered as having played Grinch when he presided over the same agency back in the Kirk Fordice administration, turning down thousands of federal dollars that could have benefited Mississippi's poor.
The 66-year-old Taylor had once remarked that his job "will be complete when people are robbing bread trucks in order to eat."
And another observation that "anybody can find work who isn't afraid of chipping their fingernails."
After the 1996 Welfare Reform Act was passed by Congress, providing funds for welfare recipients to make the transition into jobs, Taylor opted for a restrictive TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families) program, turning back child care money for mothers that was designed to help them find jobs.
In light of the U.S. Justice Department's recent finding of unconstitutionally brutal practices that had been in place at Oakley and Columbia, the state's juvenile corrections schools, the selection of Taylor to return to DHS becomes even more amazing.
Taylor had instituted the "boot camp" programs at Oakley and Columbia that brought about the Justice Department investigation and resulted in the mandate against the state to correct training methods at the schools.
Noticeably absent from last week's lineup of new state agency heads in the Barbour administration was anyone to replace departed Rica Lewis-Payton as director of Medicaid, whose $3 billion state-federal budget was criticized by the new governor during his gubernatorial campaign.
There were some reports last week that Barbour had delayed filling the post because he was having difficulty finding someone willing and with adequate credentials to tackle perhaps the toughest administrative job in state government.
Lewis-Payton, who had been brought over from the Veterans Administration by Gov. Ronnie Musgrove, won national recognition and high respect from state legislators as a top-notch Medicaid administrator. Mississippi's program is the source of health care for 720,000 medically needy and disabled persons, including 438,000 children.
Since Lewis-Payton is an African-American woman, Barbour was believed to be seeking a black female to fill the job and likely would announce his choice this week. (Editor's note: Barbour named Wallace Conerly, retired vice chancellor at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, as interim Medicaid director while he continues to search for a permanent replacement.)
Barbour's naming of former U.S. Attorney George Phillips to replace flamboyant Frank Melton as head of the Bureau of Narcotics, got mixed reviews. Especially in the Jackson metro area, despite his Rambo style, Melton has been credited with breaking up crime and drug-infested neighborhoods.
Phillips, 54, is remembered for presiding over the federal crackdown on public corruption in Mississippi during the 1980s, including "Operation Pretense," the FBI-run scam, which nabbed dozens of county officials for taking kickbacks on road culvert purchases.
But it was James Tucker, Phillips' chief of the criminal division, who actually planned and led the prosecution that convicted some of the state's most prominent politicians as well as some 57 county supervisors of public corruption.
Certainly the laid-back Phillips, who has a penchant for disappearing from the state courtroom scene to get on horseback and play cowboy in a remote retreat out West, is hardly likely to become a hands-on operator in the mode of Melton, the passionate drug-buster.
Also, the fact that Melton is an African-American and Phillips is white, and that blacks are preponderantly arrested for drug crimes, are factors in measuring the new administration's wisdom in booting Melton, who, though appointed by a Democratic governor, is nonpartisan.
Does last week's batch of mostly older, white men for several key administrative jobs reflect Haley Barbour's view of leadership for a "new" Mississippi?
Hopefully, it does not. The people are taking Barbour at his word that "we can do better," and don't expect to go back to an "old Mississippi."
