A wag once said “Hypocrisy is the lubricant of society.” He could have been talking about Tom Harkin.

With apparently no willingness to read the record, and from 1000 miles away in Washington, Tom Harkin jumped in with both feet into the federal lawsuit of Jack Gross of Des Moines. Mr. Gross sued local insurance company FBL and then lost his age discrimination claim at the U.S. Supreme Court. (Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., No. 08-441 (U.S. S. Ct. June 18, 2009) Harkin has now introduced federal legislation taking Gross’s side on the matter. Harkin claims FBL “gave (a) job to a much younger, less qualified person.”  

Who knows, Harkin’s opinion might even be valid in the Jack Gross matter  but it is terribly inconsistent with his own record when  it comes to his own “hiring” practices. Tom Harkin only a week ago issued a press release singing the praises of his two “extremely well qualified” young  United States Attorney nominees. (harkin.senate.gov/pr/p.cfm?i=318359)

Harkin picked a 34 year old and a 37 year old to serve as Iowa’s United States Attorneys. (I checked across the USA, in 2009 while Iowa has two nominees in their 30s, only one other state has a United States Attorney nominee who is in their 30s.  South Dakota has the 35 year old son of their Democratic Senator nominated who was reportedly the only person who submitted an application. Nepotism?)

It is no secret in Iowa’s legal and political community that Harkin picked the far  less experienced,   much less qualified candidates to be United States Attorneys.  Clearly, Harkin passed over several much more senior, highly respected and experienced attorneys all who expressed a willingness and desire to serve their country. In fact, Harkin mentioned one of those attorneys in his press release. He passed over the highly respected veteran federal prosecutor, Judi Whetstine for one spot. Ms Whetstine even apparently trained the much younger 37 years old Harkin picked. Harkin also passed over attorneys with over three to four times the experience of the  novice 34 year old that he selected. (This nominee resume shows that he  has only practiced law in Iowa for three years.)  Why did Harkin pass over more qualified and experienced attorneys in their 40s, 50s and 60s to select junior attorneys in their 30s?  Was it because they were the best qualified, better attorneys, better equipped to get the job done with honor? Hogwash-Harkin wanted the younger attorneys to be  Iowa United States Attorneys for many of the same  wrongheaded reasons he condemned in the Jack Gross case.   Now he wants to legislate against this practice in the private sector. Apparently he believes “younger” is an honorable criterion for his own political appointees who will be trusted to uphold federal law but such criteria should be illegal in the private sector.   How can Harkin justify his double standard? Why has he deprived Iowans of the service of better qualified attorneys for his “young pups?”   I hope Tom Harkin remembers that “He who stops being better stops being good.”