Friday, April 17, 2009

Behind the scenes - a profile of Commerce Secretary Locke

From the NY Times...an interesting read. Enjoy.


Family Secrets

The new Secretary of Commerce, Gary Locke of Seattle, is a former Eagle Scout, prosecutor, and popular two-term governor whose idea of a good time is to crawl under the kitchen sink with plumber’s tape and a gob of grease. Just one week into the new job, he flew home to mow his lawn.

After reading the background file that the F.B.I. put together on Locke, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison characterized the latest member of President Obama’s cabinet with one word — “boring.”

But Gary Locke does have a family secret that is anything but eye-glazing.

Yes, he is widely known as the nation’s first Chinese-American governor, with a stirring family saga, as President Obama said in introducing Locke.

“Sometimes the American story can be told in the span of a single mile,” Obama said, referring to the distance between the place where Gary’s immigrant grandfather worked as a house servant nearly a hundred years ago and the Capitol where Locke was sworn in as Washington state governor in 1997.

Yet there would be no Lockes in America, no great story of the kid raised in public housing who went on to Yale and high office, no presidential kudos, if that same grandfather had not lied to get into the country.

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