We’re Learning As We Go
Is the Bush administration ever going to learn from their previous mistakes? According to an article in the Nation we have another Michael Brown in the making. Citizens of the United States meet Stewart Simonson.
Stewart is the government official appointed by Bush with "the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies." Ok, well Steward is an ambitious Republican with zero public health management or medical expertise, whose previous job was as a corporate lawyer for Amtrak.
As much as it pains me George Bush won the election. So he can appoint "well-connected, ideological, ambitious Republicans" to whatever position he wants. But aren’t their at least a few Republicans that actually have some experience related to the job they’ll conduct on a day-to-day basis? I guess not. Here is just a priceless quote from the article.
In early November George W. Bush, struggling to claw his way upward in polls that had acquired the consistency of quicksand after two months of blunders and disasters, launched a new PR blitz. The Administration declared it was taking charge of the nation’s health and security with an all-out war on the flu (to be conducted with vaccines provided by well-connected pharmaceutical companies). "Our country has been given fair warning of this danger to our homeland," Bush declared. "It’s my responsibility as President to take measures now to protect the American people."
But if Bush hoped to wipe away the stain of Katrina—and the memory of a hapless Michael Brown steering FEMA in circles while New Orleans drowned—he should have thought twice about bringing up the specter of a public health emergency, because the man responsible for coordinating the federal response to a flu pandemic or bioterror attack could well be the next Michael Brown.
Meet Stewart Simonson. He’s the official charged by Bush with "the protection of the civilian population from acts of bioterrorism and other public health emergencies"–a well-connected, ideological, ambitious Republican with zero public health management or medical expertise, whose previous job was as a corporate lawyer for Amtrak. When Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recently speculated, "If something comes along that is truly serious…like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence," many of those professionally concerned with such scenarios couldn’t help thinking of Simonson. They recalled his own unsettling words at a recent Homeland Security subcommittee hearing on government response to a chemical or biological attack: "We’re learning as we go."
