PRESIDENT George W. Bush, the man who brought you the words "Hispanically" and "misunderestimated," has eliminated the AIDS and race relations offices of the White House, and is getting rid of mandatory testing for salmonella in school lunch meat. Or is he?
In his first 75 days in office, the Bush administration has made these two controversial announcements and then immediately flip-flopped and blamed the reversal on "misunderstandings" and "mistakes" in the White House office. If these statements are true, maybe Bush should appoint a more competent staff. If these aren't true, then the cowardice and stupidity of the administration are clear.
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On Feb. 8, USA Today quoted White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card as saying that Bush would close the offices on AIDS policy and race relations. After surprised activists started protesting the supposed change, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer assured the country that Card was mistaken, the offices would remain open, and chalked the whole thing up to "a misunderstanding" (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/politics/DailyNews/Bush_offices010207.html). When pressed further, Fleischer just responded, "It happens."
We can only thank our lucky stars that this "happened" in a relatively nonvolatile situation. While liberals may have been outraged and say that their relationship with the president has been damaged, the harm done is not irreparable.
But what about a misstatement on nuclear weapons, Taiwan or the Middle East? If someone in Bush's administration causes a similar "misunderstanding," we could be at war.
On April 5, newspapers ran the story that the Bush administration would end mandatory testing for salmonella in school meats. Immediately, critics jumped all over the plan, and by the end of the day the administration flip-flopped and blamed a worker in the Department of Agriculture. According to Kevin Herglotz, spokesman for the Department of Agriculture, "Somebody made a mistake" (http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2001/04/09/salmonella/index.html).
Somebody? This isn't the panel of "What's My Line" you're talking to, Mr. Herglotz, it's the American public. If there was this much confusion over a major policy change that could have affected the health of schoolchildren all over the country, then the American people deserve a better explanation than this.
If these explanations are correct, then the White House should spend some more time reading resumes or at least getting their facts straight. To make two large and glaring errors in reporting policy shows that this administration has some personnel problems.
If these excuses for the confusion aren't entirely true, the administration is in a far less righteous position. This means that the White House actually considered the elimination of the AIDS and race relations offices and lied about it afterwards.
Getting rid of the AIDS policy office might satisfy some right-wing conservatives, who see AIDS as a disease from God to rid the earth of gays and promiscuous heterosexuals. But this office supports AIDS-related research and works closely with the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV and AIDS. To simply shut down this office would be imprudent and irresponsible, not to mention detrimental to those suffering from the epidemic.
Similarly, eliminating the office of race relations sends the message that Bush is indifferent to the plight of minorities. After garnering a whopping 10 percent of the black vote in the last election, this is a move that Bush does not want to make.
Eliminating mandatory testing for salmonella also would be a very bad idea. The meat industry has lobbied the Department of Agriculture very heavily to get rid of mandatory testing. But with 1.4 million infections and 600 deaths worldwide each year, Bush shouldn't treat this problem so nonchalantly.
If these excuses are false, workers in the Bush administration considered these extremely conservative options and then immediately retreated once they saw the amount of public opposition to their plans. This makes them worse than inept, it shows them to be liars and cowards.
Is this the beginning of a pattern for the Bush administration? Bumbling workers releasing false and confusing information, or White House administrators attempting conservative policy changes and lying about it if the public finds out. Take your pick.
During the past eight years, Republicans called the evasion of responsibility by the president "Clintonian." Perhaps the mistakes of this administration that lead to so much confusion can be dubbed, in a grammatical fashion appropriate to the current president, "Bushtonian."
(Brian Cook is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at bcook@cavalierdaily.com.)
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