Is anyone surprised that former congressman Tony Coelho, the Vice-President's fiscally-challenged campaign chairman, is in trouble again?

Having resigned from Congress rather than face charges of inappropriate financial dealings, Coelho was given a plum job by the Clinton-Gore Administration to run the U.S. exhibit at last year's World Fair in Portugal. Now State Department investigators say Coelho approved questionable contractor payments, hired his niece for a job and made the government liable for a $300,000 personal loan.

Their report says Coelho and his staff also misused $210,000 in donated airline tickets, hired two stepsons of the U.S. ambassador to Portugal and had the government reimburse $26,000 in questionable expenses to a consultant who worked in Coelho's New York City office.

Coelho's rental of a chauffeur-driven Mercedes “was especially troublesome” because the cost exceeded a $500 ceiling while a fleet of six vans for the pavilion were under-used. How typical it is of Clinton-Gore Administration ethics that Coelho should not only be resurrected for a job requiring expenditure of taxpayer dollars, but would be defended by Al Gore and retained as his campaign chief.

Visualize Coelho as Secretary of the Treasury in a Gore Administration! Are we ready for four more years of the Clinton-Gore decade of deceit? Would the cast of characters in a Bradley Administration be that different?

William Fielder
Peachtree City

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