What The President Is Responsible For

Fox News and their mindless minions like to make assertions to the tune of: the President can't actually be blamed for the state of the economy; this follows 9 months or so after a long, drawn out two-step during which they took bows for the state of the economy. Fair enough. In his own words, the President likes to see himself go down in history as the wartime President leading the effort of a successful war.

However, the Founding Fathers actually envisaged the President to be a bit more than a Warlord. The President was the executive, meaning he executed that which was the law of the land, said laws being established by Congress. Exactly when we got into the situation where the President capers nimbly on the decks of naval vessels, sees himself as a wartime President, fancies himself to be the Bringer of Democracy to the world, and other such nonsensical notions, dates to January 20, 2000. Exactly when we reached the point where the executive branch ignores the will of the people as expressed in Congress dates to January 20, 2000.

As executive, it is the job of the President to see to the smooth running of the entire government. It is not the business of the executive to, for example, put scientifically incompetent religious dweebs into power at NASA. This, to my uninitiated eye, has the appearance of undermining the smooth running of the government. It is the job of the President to see to the operation of the FDA, for example; to see that it looks out for the nation, as well as the well-being of corporate entities. Here is where this President has been an abject failure.
 
It's about tomatoes now:  
June 12 (Bloomberg) -- 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has failed to provide costs or deadlines for a plan to improve food safety even as tainted tomatoes have sickened Americans, according to a report to Congress. The agency oversees the safety of about 80 percent of the nation's food supply, including $417 billion in domestic products and $49 billion in imports annually, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office. The FDA said in a November plan it would improve the way it polices the food industry by collecting data it needs to focus on the riskiest products. Prospects for the plan can't be judged unless the agency explains how it would be carried out, said Lisa Shames, director of natural resources and environment for the GAO, in testimony to be given at a House hearing today. ``As food-borne illness outbreaks continue, FDA is missing valuable opportunities to reassure Congress and the public that it is doing all it can to protect the nation's food supply,'' Shames said in her testimony. The FDA said yesterday it hasn't been able to identify the source of tomatoes that health officials say are the likely cause of 167 reported cases of salmonella in 17 states since mid-April. Lawmakers criticized the FDA's handling of food and drug safety when consumers became ill after eating tainted spinach in 2006, peanut butter in 2007 and using contaminated lots of the blood-thinner heparin this year...  

To my memory, this is the 3d year we have had outbreaks of vegetables being a threat to human life, the previous threats being E.Coli. If you think I am being facetious about blaming George Bush for this, we shall spend the time and go back into the history of the FDA since the year 2000. It will be suspiciously similar to that of the FAA and other agencies who took their cue from the administration and cosied up to business interests. Moral: no man can serve 2 masters.