Former U.S. Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona testified in Congress today. He was appointed by Bush and served from 2002 to 2006. Prior to that he had been in a medic in the Army Special Forces and a SWAT team.
Dr. Carmona said that the Bush Administration would not allow him to discuss or issue reports concerning a wide variety of topics, such as stem cell research, sex education, mental health, etc. He said Bush Administration officials repeatedly delayed and tried to "water down" his office's report on secondhand smoke. He added that he was ordered to mention President Bush "three times" on every page of every speech.
It is disgraceful that Bush would abuse a scientific office like this. While it is frustrating that Dr. Carmona did not protest until now, I suppose his military background might have something to do with it. (Think of the retired generals criticizing Rumsfeld.) As a citizen, I am disgusted. As a scientist, I am outraged.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Say "Bush" three times.
Posted by Dr. Strangelove at 9:25 PM
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7 comments:
The truth is coming out, piece by piece. I suspect that these types of things are just crumbs. The big secrets are going to come eventually. And when they do, they will change this country in ways that will make 9/11 look like a cakewalk. 9/11 didn't change things in this country. They 2000 election is what changed things. The rest flows from that fateful ay on the US Supreme Court when Bush vs Gore was settled.
The presidency as an office has been severely weakened by the presidency and is nearly destroyed. Congress will want more oversight. And I bet there will be a movement to start requiring congressional approval of a lot more posts in the administration that we see now. Presidential advisors will be scrutinized a lot more closely. And the people who wll pay the price for the abuses of this administration will be the Democrats in 2008. The new president will be held to pretty high standards.
Apologies for the somewhat off-topic, or at least topic broadening, of the following:
It seems we are finally seeing what RbR was saying would come with a Democratic congress: hearings and oversight slowly but inexorably revealing more and more of the...
I'm having trouble coming up with a word big enough to encompass the sheer badness of this administration. "Politicization", "Corruption", "Incompetence", "Sloth", "Mismanagement"? All of these seem to capture only part of the repugnant whole.
Anyway, every day I get more and more disgusted. And although I despise the cravenness of people like George Tenet and Colin Powell coming out now to say "I was against all this wrongness, but they did it anyway", at least it's coming out.
AND, as if the revelations of what has past aren't enough, the Bush administration seems to have embraced their inner lame duck, figuring that at this point, the poll numbers mean nothing (after all, can they get any lower?)
So we hear of insanity like this, which I think it's fair to characterize as "taking lead out of gasoline worked so well, we might as well let them put it back in."
And I keep reading blurbs like "and we're stuck with these jokers and their antics until the election".
To paraphrase Homer and Howard Beale, "But I'm mad as hell now!"
The Senate's being obstructed by filibuster threats, and everyone keeps talking about how impossible impeachment is, and I want to know how we can stop the madness NOW.
Not "wait until the wheels churn and the election comes and then we'll try to pick up the pieces they've left of our country."
I'm not saying how do we get the heck out of Iraq now, or actually get somewhere on the attorneys thing or the Plame thing or the Abramoff thing or the stem-cell thing or the wiretapping thing or the Guantanamo thing or the torture thing. Everyone's made it clear that none of those things are going to change any time soon.
But surely there's some freakin' thing we can do to keep these lunatics from doing new and different carnage, like re-leading gasoline or getting into a war with Iran or Turkey or whoever. They appear dead-set on doing whatever they can get away with until they finally skulk out of office. "Whatever they can get away with" needs to be "nothing".
Congress, it seems, gets rendered ineffective as a matter of routine. I want the executive branch rendered ineffective. Not in January 2009. NOW.
Bob, I'm sure the current Surgeon General will come out with a report saying that the "science" on lead poisoning is still in its early stages and that there is no consensus that it is dangerous at all.
Well, as for now, the Democratic majorities mean Bush and his Republican lackies (they gave up their claim to independent thought long ago) can't make things any worse. Undoing the damage they've already done, unfortunately, requires their cooperation until January 2009.
We are just now getting to the point where some of the Republicans are starting to admit to themselves and the public how badly they've screwed up our country. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovering. Whether they'll come around to the second step any time this year is another question.
RBR
"the Bush administration seems to have embraced their inner lame duck"... Ah yes... remember the good old days when lame ducks couldn't do anything? In this case, now that Bush is truly unaccountable even to the electorate, he (or Cheney) is doing whatever the hell he wants.
The usual practice was to tie up the executive branch with subpoenas and investigations, but Bush is refusing to honor subpoenas or cooperate with investigators... and no doubt the Supreme Court will take until 2009 to make them, if they even would.
This thing about the Surgeon General is, to use a topical word, ginormous.
Expecting the powerful to give up their power easily is folly. Freedom has to be wrested away. The Democratic Congress cannot simply complain that Bush is refusing to honor the law. They have to stand up to him. Jefferson wrote in a sexist but nonetheless useful way in the Dec of Independence that one of their reasons for acting with force in rebellion was that the King of England "has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people." That "manly firmness" (or womanly firmness, from Pelosi) is what we need now, and that is what has been sorely lacking from almost everyone except Harry Reid. A constitutional crisis is a test of wills. Thank God for Harry Reid, that pugnacious son-of-a-bitch who may yet save this republic.
"Thank God for Harry Reid, that pugnacious son-of-a-bitch who may yet save this republic." I think Senator Reid would like to frame that quote and put it on the wall. I hope he merits your faith. My favorite quote from Reid was, "I believe in vengeance." I suppose that goes to the middle of your comment.
Bob, thanks for posting about the lead issue. I hadn't heard about it. I can't believe the evil of these people. Thank goodness for the Democrats.
I know many people who once lived under dictatorships and other forms of abusive government. Many of them fear what they see happening in the US. But these same people, while disappointed in the US now, have not lost faith in it. They are quick to point out that we in this country have something that others do no: the ability to change, to correct what is wrong. They have faith in the self-correcting mechanisms that are built into this democracy.
I hope they are right. I hope that is what we are beginning to see now. I doubt, however, that any of these people will pay for the harm they have done. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Gonzalas, all of them will walk away without so much as a scratch.
The fact that a self-made man such as Gonzalas, who struggled to make it to the top, was willing to appear stupid and inept before Congress and the people in order to please Bush is a symbol of me of how morally dead this administration is. It’s pitiful. It's yet another example of the danger of blind loyalty to such an unworthy person. The fact that this same person, Gonzalas, just today said that executive privilege should be extended to Bush to prevent people from testifying before Congress in an investigation that directly involves Gonzales shows who low they sink.
I don’t want impeachment. I’ve said it before: I want them all tried for treason. I want their citizenship stripped. I want them sent to their very own gulag at Gitmo while they await trial in the Hague.
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