Running down the road

One of the biggest downsides of not being a full-time blogger (In yer dreams!) is there are just so many things that you can't get to discuss. Just to give an idea, here are eight items over the past week and a-half that I would have liked to have said more about (and in a more timely fashion) than I do here.

November 14: The FDA "didn't follow normal procedures" in rejecting an application for sales of an over-the-counter morning-after pill

and some documents suggest the decision was made even before scientists finished reviewing the evidence, congressional investigators reported Monday. ...

In December 2003, FDA's scientific advisers overwhelmingly backed over-the-counter sales for all ages, citing assessments that easier access could halve the nation's 3 million annual unintended pregnancies. But the following May, FDA leaders rejected that recommendation....

The independent Government Accountability Office reviewed FDA's first rejection, uncovering what they called "unusual" decision-making. Among the findings:

- Conflicting accounts of whether the decision was made months before scientific reviews were completed.

- Unusual involvement from high-ranking agency officials.

- Three FDA directors who normally would have been responsible for signing off on the decision did not do so because they disagreed with it.

The morning-after pill contains a very high dose of birth-control meds and works by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg - which leads conservatives to consider it a form of abortion. And, of course, ideology trumps science. (See Design, Intelligent.)

November 15: I told you this was coming.

The former chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting repeatedly violated the organization's contracting rules and code of ethics in his efforts to promote conservatives in the system, according to an internal investigation released today. ...

[Kenneth] Konz[, the corporation's inspector general,] and his nine-member staff documented numerous occasions in which [Kenneth] Tomlinson circumvented the corporation's contracting procedures in trying to hire his own handpicked candidates to study the political balance in public broadcasting.

Where I disagree with the report is that it labeled him a "rogue politico." I don't think there was anything "rogue" about him; I think the other board members knew exactly what they had and their smarmy praise of him when he quit says they just didn't care.

November 16: Remember this the next time some red-faced and vein-bulged White House mouthpiece is ranting about how outrageous it is to suggest they have ever told us anything other than the unvarnished truth about Iraq.

On May 31, 1970, a month after [Richard] Nixon went on TV to defend the previously secret U.S. bombings and troop movements in Cambodia, asserting that he would not let his nation become "a pitiful, helpless giant," the president met his top military and national security aides at the Western White House in San Clemente, Calif. ...

In a memo from the meeting marked "Eyes Only, Top Secret Sensitive," Nixon told his military men to continue doing what was necessary in Cambodia, but to say for public consumption that the United States was merely providing support to South Vietnamese forces when necessary to protect U.S. troops.

"That is what we will say publicly," he asserted. "But now, let's talk about what we will actually do."

Like I've been saying, plus ça change....

November 16: I assume the corporatists and their "dismal science" flaks would have some way of maintaining this shows the self-correcting nature of the "free market," but I have to admit I can't think of what that way might be.

DuPont Co. hid studies showing the risks of a Teflon-related chemical used to line candy wrappers, pizza boxes, microwave popcorn bags and hundreds of other food containers, according to internal company documents and a former employee.

The chemical Zonyl can rub off the liner and get into food. Once in a person's body, it can break down into perfluorooctanoic acid and its salts, known as PFOA, a related chemical used in the making of Teflon-coated cookware.

The Environmental Protection Agency has been trying to decide whether to classify PFOA as a "likely" human carcinogen.

DuPont officials insist the products are "safe for consumer use" because they were approved by the FDA. The fact that they were approved without knowing of the company's suppressed studies seems to have slipped their profit-über-alles minds.

By the way, the FDA says it's "continuing to monitor" the safety of the related chemicals and the EPA says it has "an extensive effort under way" on the matter. We all know what that means.

November 16: Under the "What, You're Surprised?" heading we find the news that

[a] White House document shows that executives from big oil companies met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force in 2001 - something long suspected by environmentalists but denied as recently as last week by industry officials testifying before Congress.

The document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy....

The liars in the White House defend themselves by saying it's necessary for the president to be able to get "confidential advice." But apparently, only from those who pull their strings.

November 17: U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer waxed poetic about how "the transcendent importance of a free press" enables reporters to "report the news and express opinions without fear of government oppression or interference." And then

found Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus in contempt Wednesday, saying the journalist must reveal his government sources for stories about the criminal investigation of nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.

Because, y'see, while the press is free to report the news without government interference, it's not free to gather the news from confidential sources without government interference.

I sympathize with Lee, who is seeking the identities of reporters' sources for his suit against the departments of Energy and Justice after he was apparently falsely accused of leaking classified information to China during a wave of paranoia about supposed Chinese espionage. But I do think there is a higher priority here.

Now, let me be clear: I don't think Pincus (or any of the other reporters from who Lee is seeking information) should feel obligated to protect his source since he was apparently being used to leak embarrassing information about Lee. There was no real story here, just manipulation for political (and possibly personal) ends. But that's a different question from if he should be forced to reveal that source. That, I believe, is an extremely risky course that reaches far beyond any individual case, as much as lawyers might like to argue otherwise.

For much the same reason, I stand apart from most of my comrades on the left in the case of Judith Miller. Certainly, she should have felt no obligation to Libby to keep his identity a secret; I think reporters' attitude should be "I find out you were using me, I'll burn you." But I disagree with those who applauded her contempt citation and even more with those who said she was not only legally obligated to reveal his name, she was ethically obligated to do so. The real basis of this "obligation," it seemed to me, was that people thought it would get Karl Rove. Particularly at a time of increasingly fierce efforts at shrouding much of government from the prying eyes of the interested public (see preceding item), I think that attitude is classically penny wise and pound foolish - and as confidential sources become harder and harder to come by (as some reporters insist they already are), that shroud will be wrapped ever tighter.

November 17: This is probably the one that I most regret not having been vocal about here. (It is something on which I can be confident my own Congressional reps will go the correct way - they usually do - but they did hear from me.) But ultimately, I wonder if it would have made any difference no matter how vocal any of us were, whether here, there, or anywhere else.

House and Senate negotiators reached a tentative agreement yesterday on revisions to the USA Patriot Act that would limit some of the government's powers while requiring the Justice Department to provide a better accounting of its secret requests for information on ordinary citizens.

But the agreement would leave intact some of the most controversial provisions of the anti-terrorism law, such as government access to library and bookstore records in terrorism probes, and would extend only limited new rights to the targets of such searches.

In fact, the "More power!" crew got pretty much everything they wanted. Not everything, but close enough. And why do I wonder if anything would have made a difference?

Three other measures - including one allowing law enforcement agents access to bookstore and public library records - would be extended for seven years, or three years longer than the Senate had agreed to. The House initially extended the provisions for 10 years but later voted to accept the Senate's four-year extension.

That is, the Senate passed a four-year extension. The House passed a four-year extension. The conferees' "compromise" has a seven-year extension. Increasingly under one-party rule, the conference committee doesn't come up with a "compromise," it comes up with what the misleaders (who choose the committee) want.

On the other hand, I suppose I'm a touch too pessimistic: If it hadn't been for the noise made all summer, I frankly expect it would have been much worse.

November 18: Just as a wrap-up, in what must mark a new low for pettiness, the Senate's GOPper misleadership

refused to bring up for consideration a resolution, introduced by Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Jon Corzine, [both D-NJ,] that honored [Bruce] Springsteen's long career and the 1975 release of his iconic album, "Born to Run."

Resolutions like this are passed by the dozens, the hundreds, every year, usually by unanimous consent. Although no reason was given for blocking this one, the belief was that the GOPpers are still "miffed" about Springsteen having supported John Kerry.