The folks at the pro-labor outfit Americans Rights At Work don't harbor a lot of affection for Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao. And why would they? Like many of Bush's "ironic" appointees - like Education Secretaries that hate public schools, Interior Secretaries that love polluters and Pentagon officials who like sending our troops to fight in intractable, endless wars, Chao is a Labor Secretary that hates laborers. She's sandbagged investigators looking into the Crandall Canyon mine disaster, doled out millions of dollars worth of suspect grants, and where bad policy decisions have failed to make her animus clear, she's taken to issuing insults.

But if there's one thing Chao loves, it's her main squeeze, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. She'll do anything for her man, especially when it comes to boosting his re-election hopes. If only she were as discreet as Eliot Spitzer's courtesans, though, because the ARW blog, Shame On Elaine, has detected a curious pattern in her recent itinerary:

• * An October 4, 2007 speech to the Paducah Area Chamber of Commerce in Paducah, Kentucky, where she bragged about doling out non-competitive grants with taxpayer dollars.
• * An October 4, 2007 speech to the 23rd Annual Kentucky SHRM Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, where she once again accused American workers of having a "skills gap."
• * A January 24, 2008 speech to the Greater Owensboro Chamber of Commerce in Owensboro, Kentucky, where she highlighted the "resiliency of our economy."
• * A February 28, 2008 speech to the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce in Washington, DC, where she basically combined the three previous speeches to Kentucky business interest groups into one. (Is she short on material these days?)

In essence, Chao is carrying water for her husband instead of honoring her taxpayer-funded duties at Labor, and it hardly stops at a high incidence of visits to the Bluegrass State. When the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce comes to DC, McConnell and Chao are a face-time package deal. And her reflexive pandering to her husband's constituency finds its way into even the most mundane business: this February 2008 speech awkwardly reaches back all the way to June of 2007 in order to find a way to remind Kentuckians just how good the Department of Labor has treated them.

ARW writes: "We sincerely hope the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce enjoyed its visit to Washington, DC last month. Meeting with both the Senate Minority Leader and the Secretary of Labor on the same day is quite the honor." Yeesh. If they say so.