Ronald Reagan hates firing people. So instead of forthrightly dismissing his Secretary of Health and Human Services, he offered Margaret Mary O'Shaughnessy Heckler a "promotion" to Ambassador to Ireland. Her first reaction was to call the job "a nice one--for someone else." Only after a 50-minute meeting with the President did she accept. Reagan then stood beside a grim Heckler at a press conference to denounce the "malicious gossip" that he had dumped her.
In truth, the President likes the former Massachusetts Congresswoman who has run the monstrous HHS (current budget: $316 billion) since 1983. His hand was forced by Chief...
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