MEET JOHN SNOW

Though a player in Washington since the Ford administration, John W. Snow moved to the top of the current administration’s hardly secret search for a new treasury secretary in July with the TV appearance in which he praised a speech President Bush had just given on corporate responsibility. That Mr. Snow will replace Paul O’Neill, who as a CEO didn’t just talk corporate responsibility but lived it, is one of those odd twists that makes Washington what it is.

Mr. O’Neill was into corporate responsibility before corporate responsibility was cool and he practiced it voluntarily, with waiting to be compelled by law – as head of Alcoa, he booked executive stock options as the actual expenses they are, he insisted on ramrod straight accounting and a clear divide between auditors and consultants. That same tendency to tell it like it is, or at least as he saw it, is what got him in trouble and made him the first casualty of the Bush Cabinet – his skepticism about expanding international economic development programs without stronger controls on waste and fraud, his advocacy of a revenue-neutral simplification of U.S. tax code before more tax cuts are two notable examples of his desire to be right rather than secretary. With a new round of tax cuts about to be proposed and the 2004 election closing in, it clearly was time for him to go.

There is no reason to believe Mr. Snow, chairman of the freight-rail and transportation conglomerate CSX Corp., is not every bit as honest as Mr. O’Neill; there is every reason to believe he is a considerably better communicator and diplomat. He has served presidents of both parties, he has a legendary reputation for persuasiveness and depth of knowledge.

Mr. Snow’s confirmation by the Senate should not be difficult, but it need not be a rubber stamp. The economy is not well and unemployment is at an eight-year high; if a new round of tax cuts will get things moving, Mr. Snow should be prepared to explain how they will differ from the old tax cuts that did not. The debate on Social Security is about to reconvene; his views on private retirement accounts could affect Americans generations from now. He is a strong advocate of deregulation; in transportation it made CSX a giant but it clearly harmed rural regions, a fact that should not be lost on senators with rural constituencies. His participation in those closed-door national energy policy meetings is highly germane for one about to hold such an important post; his membership in the men-only Augusta National Golf Club should at least make for some interesting Q&A at his confirmation hearing.