Although George W. Bush spent several of the Christmas holidays on a "non-working" vacation in Florida with family members, including his father, former-President George Bush, and brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, it's no secret that who caught the most fish was not their only topic of conversation.
Phones lines were busy between Boca Grande Island off the Florida Gulf coast and Washington, D.C., where the incoming vice president, Dick Cheney, was helping Bush narrow down choices for remaining key appointments to head the Cabinet offices of Defense, Labor, Energy, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Housing and Urban Development and Education, Health and Human Services.
Bush is expected to begin announcing some of those Cabinet choices after he gets back to Washington on Thursday.
According to the Washington Times, which has been tracking the Bush-Cheney transition closely:
Two new names have bubbled up in recent speculation.
One is Frederick Smith, founder and chairman of FedEx Corp., for secretary of defense, the heaviest responsibility among the Cabinet posts yet to be filled.
Earlier speculation had focused on former-Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana, popular with centrists and conservatives within the Republican Party.
The other new name to surface is that of a prominent black businessman, Stephen A. Perry, 55, for secretary of labor.
Recommended for that position by Ohio Gov. Bob Taft, he is senior vice president for labor relations and workplace safety for the worldwide operation of the Timken steel and roller-bearings company, based in Canton, Ohio.
Perry served in the administration of Ohio's former-Gov. George V. Voinovich, now a United States senator, as director of the department of administrative services, which had an annual budget of more than $2 billion.
A former member of the Ohio Board of Regents, which oversees that state's universities, Perry holds graduate management degrees from Stanford University and the University of Michigan School of Business Administration.
Perry, who once headed the Ohio equivalent of the federal General Services Administration, might be selected to head the GSA or the Office of Personnel Management rather than the Labor Department.
Under consideration to head the Department of Veterans Affairs are Robin Higgins and Anthony Principi.
Higgins, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel, is executive director of the Florida Department of Veterans Affairs and widow of Col. Rich Higgins, who was kidnapped and murdered by Iranian-backed militants in Lebanon in 1988.
Principi is a San Diego lawyer, Naval Academy graduate and Vietnam combat veteran who was deputy secretary of veterans affairs during the presidency of Bush's father.
Another possible Bush appointee to a Cabinet office is Wisconsin Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, a pioneer in school choice and welfare reform in his state, as secretary of health and human services or secretary of transportation.
Possible appointees below the Cabinet rank include:
• Campaign adviser Karl Rove as counselor to the president.
• Donald Rumsfeld, a former defense secretary, to head the Central Intelligence Agency.
• Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a former FBI agent and Justice Department official, to head the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
• A former Federal Reserve Board member, Larry Lindsay, as chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers.
• Patricia Harrison, co-chair of the Republican National Committee, to head the Small Business Administration.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.