{"id":11400,"date":"2007-07-10T14:45:27","date_gmt":"2007-07-10T18:45:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11400.html"},"modified":"2007-07-10T14:45:27","modified_gmt":"2007-07-10T18:45:27","slug":"competing-ideas-were-ignored-marginalized-or-simply-buried","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/competing-ideas-were-ignored-marginalized-or-simply-buried\/","title":{"rendered":"Competing ideas were ‘ignored, marginalized, or simply buried’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Richard Carmona, Bush’s first appointed Surgeon General, never quite fit in as the rigid right-wing ideologue the president likes to have around. He disagreed with the White House on a variety of public health issues (stem-cell research, sexual health), and even suggested he’d like to see all tobacco products banned<\/a> in the United States.<\/p>\n

Today, Carmona told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he wanted to use his stature as the “nation’s doctor” to speak out on issues, but the Bush gang wouldn’t let him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[A]lthough most Americans believe that their Surgeon General has the ability to impact the course of public health as “the nation’s doctor,” the reality is that the nation’s doctor has been marginalized and relegated to a position with no independent budget, and with supervisors who are political appointees with partisan agendas. Anything that doesn’t fit into the political appointees’ ideological, theological, or political agenda is ignored, marginalized, or simply buried<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Carmona revealed that when he tried to explain the science of stem cell research to the American public, he was “blocked at every turn, told a decision had already been made, stand down, don’t talk about it.” Additionally, political appointees were specifically assigned to “vet his speeches” and “spin [his] words in such a way that would be preferable to a political or ideologically pre-conceived notion that had nothing to do with science.” He was also barred from speaking freely to reporters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I started drawing up an informal list of non-partisan offices and federal agencies that the Bush gang have politicized to an unprecedented extent, but quickly gave up — the list was too long and it became too depressing.<\/p>\n

Of course, there is another Surgeon General nominee who’s status is not only pending, but is getting more interesting.
\n
\nAs regular readers know, Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., Bush’s new nominee for Surgeon General, has become quite controversial<\/a> given his background as an anti-gay activist. In 1991, Holsinger went so far as to write a paper arguing that, from a medical perspective, homosexuality is unnatural and unhealthy, a position rejected by professionals as prioritizing political ideology over science.<\/p>\n

In response, conservatives expressed exasperation. “Can’t we have one confirmation hearing without a culture-war fight?” the typical Bush ally argued. “Does every nomination have to meet some kind of ideological litmus test?”<\/p>\n

And then these same conservatives learned that Holsinger supports stem-cell research. Now they’re not so sure<\/a> about his qualifications, either.<\/p>\n

Homosexual advocacy groups are objecting strongly to President Bush’s nominee for surgeon general, but Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr. also faces questions from conservative groups about his views on human cloning and embryonic-stem-cell research.<\/p>\n

Tom McCluskey, vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council, said that Dr. Holsinger spoke to a Kentucky state legislature committee in 2002 and “testified in support of loosening regulations around cloning and embryonic-stem-cell research.”<\/p>\n

“We’re not supportive of his nomination right now,” Mr. McCluskey said, adding that “we’ve been told he’s come around on the issue, but the surgeon general is such a strong bully pulpit position that we want to be sure.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes, these guys crack me up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Richard Carmona, Bush’s first appointed Surgeon General, never quite fit in as the rigid right-wing ideologue the president likes to have around. He disagreed with the White House on a variety of public health issues (stem-cell research, sexual health), and even suggested he’d like to see all tobacco products banned in the United States. […]<\/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-11400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11400","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=11400"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11400\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}