{"id":10681,"date":"2007-05-02T13:20:32","date_gmt":"2007-05-02T17:20:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10681.html"},"modified":"2007-05-02T13:20:32","modified_gmt":"2007-05-02T17:20:32","slug":"look-another-czar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/look-another-czar\/","title":{"rendered":"Look, another ‘czar’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Apparently, the FDA is no longer functioning when it comes to food safety, but don’t worry, we now have a new “czar<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

The Bush administration appointed a new “food safety czar” yesterday and directed him to develop a plan for addressing shortcomings exposed by recent scares in the human food supply.<\/p>\n

Dr. David W.K. Acheson, a former University of Maryland medical school professor who had been chief medical officer at the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety center, immediately stepped into the job.<\/p>\n

The creation of the new position underscored the extent of public concern about the country’s food safety system over a dangerous chemical found in pet food entering the human food supply, in addition to recent outbreaks of bacterial contamination in bagged spinach, Taco Bell lettuce and Peter Pan peanut butter.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, I’m not an expert in this, but it doesn’t seem as if the problem up until now has been the lack of a “czar,” but rather, a flawed and ineffective<\/a> FDA.<\/p>\n

It’s almost as if the White House decided that food safety is poised to become the next big administration fiasco — Walter Reed seems to have slipped from the headlines, so the Bush gang is due a new policy scandal — so they came up with the “czar” idea to give the appearance of progress.<\/p>\n

It reminds me of The Simpsons episode when Mayor Quimby establishes a “blue-ribbon commission” to address a crisis. One character responded earnestly, “Did he say a blue-ribbon<\/i> commission?” Prompting another to say, “Well, you can’t do any better than that!” The Bush gang will do the same here: “Sure, there’s a food-safety problem, but look, I named a czar!”<\/p>\n

And as long as we’re on the subject, what’s with all the “czars”? I’ve come up with a list….
\n
\n* The White House wants a “war czar<\/a>” to oversee the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

* Officials created a “czar<\/a>” to manage relief efforts along the Gulf Coast after Katrina.<\/p>\n

* There’s already a “drug czar<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

* On Labor Day 2003, Bush named a “manufacturing czar<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

* In 2001, after a cybersecurity controversy erupted, the White House announced a “privacy czar<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

* OMB created a “regulatory czar<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

And now there’s a “food safety czar<\/a>.” Here’s a radical idea: why not use the existing federal bureaucracy, government agencies, and competent officials to do their jobs without creating some new “czar” position? Or is that pre-9\/11 thinking?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Apparently, the FDA is no longer functioning when it comes to food safety, but don’t worry, we now have a new “czar.” The Bush administration appointed a new “food safety czar” yesterday and directed him to develop a plan for addressing shortcomings exposed by recent scares in the human food supply. Dr. David W.K. Acheson, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}