Howard Kurtz on Tommy Thompson
Belated Candor
Tuesday, Dec 07, 2004; 9:29 AM
Tommy Thompson finally told the truth.
I'm not saying the Health and Human Services secretary has been untruthful in the past, but let's just say he never got around to telling us what was really on his mind.
Now that Thompson has resigned, he suddenly feels free to announce what he really thinks about administration policies.
This sort of thing drives me crazy. When he could have made a difference--and Thompson had a certain stature as a successful former governor of Wisconsin--he held his tongue. And this is considered such routine Washington behavior that the news accounts made no issue of Thompson's previous silence on the subjects on which he has now unburdened himself.
What did he say last Friday? One, that he's worried about a terrorist attack on the nation's food supply. "Because it is so easy to do," Thompson announced, especially with imports from such places as, say, the Middle East. Yes, the government has increased food inspections, but if the effort is woefully inadequate, why didn't Thompson warn us before now? Because he presumed that he would have lost his job by not following the Bush line that the country is safer under the president's watch?
Wait, there's more. Thompson now says he wished Congress had given him the authority to negotiate with drug makers for lower prices under the new Medicare prescription bill. This was only a central question in the debate over the far-reaching legislation. Billions of dollars in potential savings were at stake. But the White House line was that this would lead to price controls, so Thompson waited until the bill was law and he was halfway out the door before sharing.
Oh, and he supports a fundamental change in the way the Food and Drug Administration does business. There should be a separate, independent office on drug safety within the FDA, which is in the business of approving drugs--a problem underscored by its botching of the Vioxx problem.
The New York Times smartly put Thompson's parting blasts on the front page. The Washington Post bobbled the ball by combining it with a story whose headline began "Rumsfeld to Remain at Pentagon," a total non-surprise. And no one seems particularly exercised that Tommy Thompson kept his views to himself until he was no longer in a position to do anything about them. |
