money and the defense policy board

Tillie Fowler was recently named as the chairperson of the Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee. Richard Perle stepped down as chair, though not from the committee, after Seymour Hersh exposed some rather questionable business practices by Mr. Perle and his company Trireme Partners L.P., in an article Lunch With the Chairman.

Did Tillie Fowler learn absolutely nothing from the episode?

An advisory panel to Gov. Jeb Bush recommended this week that [Florida] spend about $500,000 with the national law firm Holland & Knight, which has pledged to put some of its most politically influential players on a task force to investigate potential closures. Among its team members is former U.S. Rep. Tillie Fowler of Jacksonville.

It would be up to Fowler and others on the consulting team, should the firm ultimately win a contract with the state, to advise Bush and other state officials about which Florida military installations, if any, might be at risk.

Bush aides say Fowler is an ideal choice for the scouting mission. She is head of a panel conducting hearings on the U.S. Air Force Academy's handling of rape allegations and was appointed this month by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to head up a national defense policy board.

One would assume that even the slightest appearance of a conflict of interest would be best to be avoided. There's the added bonus points of a conflict of interest that happens to be in the state of Florida, where the Presiden't brother is the sitting governor, who was in office during the purges of 93,000 voters from the 2000 voter rolls, that affected the outcome of a national presidential election...

Read the rest in an article by Mark Hollis in the Orlando Sentinel, Former politico to probe base closings