Thursday, July 12, 2007
Everything Is Mutable
George W. Bush, the man of a thousand talents. And apparently, one of those talents is taking over for the Surgeon General.
The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.
Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.
And, in a perfect example of how the Bush oligarchy considers politics above all-- and I mean all-- Dr. Carmona was discouraged from helping out with the Special Olympics for reasons that were "special" on their own.
nd administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.
“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.
You mean the mentally retarded?
The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.
When asked after the hearing if that “prominent family” was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, “You said it. I didn’t.”
Oh. Yeah, I can see why using your Surgeon General to strike back at a family diametrically opposed to you-- and that's skirting the fact that Bush considers it okay to use his Surgeon General as a political tool-- would be more important than helping some poor disabled kids take part in the one day when they feel like a winner.
It's become startlingly clear that Bush considers him as far more than the head of the Executive Branch and president of these United States. If anything, he considers himself God-Emperor of the United States. If his word is questioned, he ignores the question. If the facts speak against him, he makes his own. There is no one he will not toss aside, even if they are an expert in their field and Bush himself knows as much about the subject to get into Round 2 of a pub quiz.
And we all pay the price because of it.
The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.
Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.
And, in a perfect example of how the Bush oligarchy considers politics above all-- and I mean all-- Dr. Carmona was discouraged from helping out with the Special Olympics for reasons that were "special" on their own.
nd administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.
“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.
You mean the mentally retarded?
The Special Olympics is one of the nation’s premier charitable organizations to benefit disabled people, and the Kennedys have long been deeply involved in it.
When asked after the hearing if that “prominent family” was the Kennedys, Dr. Carmona responded, “You said it. I didn’t.”
Oh. Yeah, I can see why using your Surgeon General to strike back at a family diametrically opposed to you-- and that's skirting the fact that Bush considers it okay to use his Surgeon General as a political tool-- would be more important than helping some poor disabled kids take part in the one day when they feel like a winner.
It's become startlingly clear that Bush considers him as far more than the head of the Executive Branch and president of these United States. If anything, he considers himself God-Emperor of the United States. If his word is questioned, he ignores the question. If the facts speak against him, he makes his own. There is no one he will not toss aside, even if they are an expert in their field and Bush himself knows as much about the subject to get into Round 2 of a pub quiz.
And we all pay the price because of it.
