Who’s in Contempt?
The Washington Times
By: John McCaslin
Inside the Beltway
September 19, 2000
If American Indians were upset before at how they’ve been treated by the U.S. government, then they’re even angrier now after a prank by two Clinton administration appointees.
“This is intolerable, and I won’t tolerate it anymore,” says Elouise Cobell, a Blackfoot tribal banker and lead plaintiff in a major lawsuit against the federal government for mismanaging millions of dollars in trust-fund accounts held by thousands of Indians. “I did not like it, and the majority of Indian people did not like it,” Ms. Cobell told Inside the Beltway yesterday.
Ms. Cobell is the butt of a parody calling her “contemptible Cobell,” a song penned by Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Michael J. Anderson and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) special assistant Loretta Tuell, a top aide to Indian Affairs Director Kevin Gover.
The song, which Mr. Anderson conceded writing with Ms. Tuell’s help, was performed recently at a BIA office party — the same week Mr. Gover, on behalf of the administration, issued a tearful apology to all Indians for years of mistreatment by the government. Both Mr. Anderson and Ms. Tuell were attending the same out-of-town “retreat” yesterday and could not be reached for comment, a BIA spokesman told us.
In light of the ongoing court case, Ms. Cobell says the two appointees should be held in contempt, and in the interim calls on Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to issue an apology to the entire Indian nation.
“Here two days after [the parody was performed], Gover was getting up and apologizing to the Indian people,” says Ms. Cobell. “To allow this to happen was very disrespectful not only to me, but to the court, Judge Lamberth, and the beneficiaries.”
U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth, who has been handling the trust-fund case, vowed in a previous court ruling to personally oversee efforts by government officials to fix the failed system.
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