Belated Nominations for 20th Century
James G. Watt – 43rd United States
Secretary of the Interior
DOB: January 31, 1938
Famous Quotes:
“If the troubles from environmentalists cannot be solved in the jury box or at the ballot box, perhaps the cartridge box should be used.”
“Everything Cheney’s saying, everything the president’s saying – they’re saying exactly what we were saying 20 years ago, precisely … Twenty years later, it sounds like they’ve just dusted off the old work.”
An Excerpt from Crimes Against Nature by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Most notorious, [brewer Joseph] Coors chose James Watt, president of the Mountain States Legal Foundation, as the secretary of the interior. Watt was a proponent of “dominion theology,” an authoritarian Christian heresy that advocates man’s duty to “subdue” nature. His deep faith in laissez-faire capitalism and apocalyptic Christianity led Secretary Watt to set about dismantling his department and distributing its assets rather than managing them for future generations. During a Senate hearing, he cited the approaching Apocalypse to explain why he was giving away America’s sacred places at fire-sale prices: “I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns.”
Later Career
In 1995, Watt was indicted on 25 counts of felony perjury and obstruction of justice by a federal grand jury. The indictments were due to false statements made to a grand jury investigating influence peddling at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which he had lobbied in the mid to late 1980s. On January 2, 1996, as part of a plea bargain, Watt pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of withholding documents from a federal grand jury. On March 12, 1996 he was sentenced to 5 years probation and ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and perform 500 hours of community service. [See Source.]
PRO 