Kim Il Bush 1
Dick Polman on ex-Surgeon General Carmona’s testimony regarding his being hamstrung by Bushie ideologues (emphasis added):
It was the little detail about how he was ordered to invoke Bush’s name three times on every page of every speech.
By the way, the White House countered in the usual fashion yesterday, contending that Carmona failed in his job. Make of that what you will. I also anticipate that the Bush defenders will blithely ignore Carmona’s list of substantive complaints (among other things, he was ordered not to talk about advances in stem-cell science, or about how Bush’s abstinence-only stance on teen sex contradicted the best public health science), and simply take refuge in the “What About Clinton?†defense. And, yes, it’s true that Carmona’s predecessor, David Satcher, was barred in 1998 from releasing a new report about sexuality because its release would have been politically awkward for a president enmeshed at the time in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. And yes, it’s also true that Clinton forced Satcher’s predecessor, Jocelyn Elders, to resign in 1994 after she suggested publicly that masturbation should be discussed in sex ed courses.
But Carmona’s remarks need to be seen in proper context – as further evidence of the Bush regime’s unprecedented attempts to politicize the institutions of government, to bend them in the service of partisan ends.
July 12, 2007 at 1:50 am
I figured you’d like that one when you saw it. Shock of all shocks, so did I.