A guy I used to know
I see that W. has nominated Chris Cox, the conservative Southern California congressman, to be chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission. You talk about your six degrees of separation -- Cox and I are at the first degree, having been fellow summer clerks at a big bucks L.A. law firm in 1976.
We both got offers -- he bit, I didn't. Chris was an Orange County right-wing true believer even then, but it was a much softer time, and he was a good colleague. No doubt he was in on some of our all-clerk treks to Chavez Ravine to catch Garvey, Cey and the Dodgers. At the end of the summer, the clerks decided to spoof the firm in a musical revue, whose parody lyrics are somewhat memorable to this day:
Across the U.S.A.
Then everybody'd be clerkin'
In Califor-nigh-ay
You'd see them wearing their wingtips
Their three-piece pinstripes too
Tacky, tacky short haircuts
Clerkin' U.S.A.
Cox, a Harvard JD-MBA, went on to clerk for Judge Choy on the Ninth Circuit in Honolulu -- a great gig -- and proceeded on to work in the Reagan White House. By the late '80s he was in Congress. Been there ever since. He's a liberal's nightmare, and I doubt I'll agree with much he does over at the SEC. But he's championed the tax-free internet, among other worthwhile things, and from what I remember he's a decent guy.
Comments (2)
Yeah, as a fellow USC alum (from the opposite end of the spectrum) I met Chris Cox when I was involved in campus politics...
He's a liberal's nightmare
Oh god, he is. I've expected him to run for the US Senate and/or Governor for a long time. Smart, savvy, articulate, and right-wing in that Gordon-Smith-in-a-sweater kinda way.
Posted by Kari Chisholm | June 2, 2005 11:43 PM
Ah jeeze... why does it come as a surprise to some that one can be a conservative AND a decent guy?
It is as if that is big news...
Heavy sigh...
Posted by Ted Piccolo | June 4, 2005 12:25 PM