Gadflying

American Civil Liberties Union
Southern Poverty Law Center
KQED and KTEH (or your local public television/radio)
American Humane Association
Humane Society of the United States
Environmental Defense
Defenders of Wildlife
World Wildlife Fund
Democracy in Action
and
Democratic National Committee

Tony Snow, not a man to be caught on a road not previously trod by the Presidential boot, had apparently by mid-November known that kudos to Mr. Bolton would be lavish, despite a certain inevitability since the mid-term election that his head would probably go bouncing down the dais steps along with Rumsfeld’s.  After all, Rumsfeld’s performance had been lavishly praised, just before the not very skilled Mr. Bush attempted to “whoooooosh” net by lobbing his severed head through the basket. 

The home team didn’t cheer.  It stamped its feet and chanted, “Why now when we’ve lost and not sooner when it might have helped!!!” 

In this Administration, however, an oracle like Mr. Snow learns to speak not with forked, but with fully shredded, tongue.  No matter what Mr. Bush had decided about Bolton, just as was the case with Rumsfeld, something Snow had said, sometime or other, someplace or other, could have been spun as a prediction -- of staying or going, as need seemed to demand.  It’s not as though the other end of the rope in this Administration is tied to an anchor of truth that has to be considered. 

Thus, in Snow’s eyes, Bolton has been “highly successful” and “has demonstrated an ability to work effectively with other members and other U.N. delegations”

For some, however, Mr. Bolton has not been an apple of watchful eyes.  If anything, he’s been a particularly irriating floating mote, one that escapes removal and won’t be washed away.  Thus, according to the view of ThinkProgress:


Bolton will be leaving a tenure that has been characterized by ineffectiveness and U.S. estrangement from the world community. Some highlights of Bolton’s “highly successful” tenure.

– Isolated the United States from its allies on the Human Rights Council. The United States was one of four nations to oppose the creation of the Council. (170 nations voted for it.) Out of 30 or so negotiating sessions over the creation of the Council, Bolton attended just one. He also argued for permanent membership for China and Russia on the Council.

– Made stopping genocide in Sudan a low priority. In early June, Bolton skipped a U.N. Security Council mission to Sudan for a speaking engagement at the Centre for Policy Studies, a right-wing think tank in London. Most other nations, including the UK, China, and France, sent their top representatives.

– Sought to undermine the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The MDGs aimed to convert rhetoric into hard numbers on such issues as reducing global poverty and hunger. Just days after he arrived in New York after his recess appointment, Bolton released over 700 edits to the draft document for the 2005 World Summit Outcome, excising all mentions of the MDGs.


Well, as Mr. Bush said, "During his tenure, he (Mr. Bolton) articulately advocated the positions and values of the United States and advanced the expansion of democracy and liberty.”

If you don’t recognize the “positions and values of the United States” as articulated by Mr. Bolton and revealed by his actions, and if you have trouble seeing how his words and deeds advanced the expansion of democracy and liberty, you obviously have NOT being paying sufficient attention to our Attorney General and his amazing lexicon of redefined principles on  which this nation was founded, and the extent to which a fair number of our Supreme Court justices seem to be mounted on a single rod: Knock one over, you down’em all -- like those adorable plump wooden yellow ducks in the carnival!


UPDATE 12/05/06:  For lots of additional information about Mr. Bolton's UN tour, see the Progress Report from The Center for American Progress Action Fund.  As always, it is very full and comes complete with links to underlying material of interest -- all well worth your time.


2.  Eye of the Beholder Case Two: Pfizer and Big-Hearted Pharma Industry

Even before the labyrinthine Medicare Drug Benefit made its way into our lives, I entertained suspicions about pharmaceutical companies.  I watched their lobbyists at work; I studied commercials geared to leave the viewer feeling that he had just watched a big-hearted public service message; I looked up on the Internet those financial reports which are required to be filed as part of public records.  Imagine my surprise!  Of the seven reports I studied by line, all expended more on “Marketing” and “Other/Miscellaneous” than on “Research and Development”.  Gives a person pause, yes?  In fact, in the case of a few, whiskers and tails as well!  After all, R&D is the excuse for the high drug prices in this country.  U.S. consumers "repay" R&D costs at a much higher rate than foreign customers.  Go figure!

Check out Merck’s third quarter 2006 income report  and balance sheet (then click to the full reports  of 2005).

Now move on the Pfizer.  Same drill with 2006 interim and 2005 annual reports.

Now get yourselves a clean hanky.  Pfizer has fallen on hard times with its clinical trials of Torcetrapib.

Please understand: I am able to be here mouthing off today because of chemotherapy advances since 1961 when cancer killed my mother.  I am grateful.  But because I am basically a socialist at heart, it grieves me at some fundamental level that products necessary to health or sustaining life are tied to profitability.  Those things I want to be a given in everyone’s life.  Furbelows and extras like fine wines, a third home, snazzy old cars – fine.  Those willing to work longer and harder or able to work smarter should have ‘em by all means.  But not from rapacious salaries, bonuses, and dividends they receive from companies producing the necessities of life for people working at less exalted rates of pay (the not-a-change-in-nine-years minimum wage somehow springs to mind) and barely able to survive now that they've been stripped of medical benefits and reliable pensions.

And I am particularly disturbed by this quote.  You will note it is not directed at sorrow that the trials have had to be halted, that the drug will not after all be available to help possibly hundreds of thousands of sufferers.  No, that’s not the reason Pfizer is hanging out black crepe: 

"I am terribly disappointed.  This drug, if it worked, would probably have been the largest-selling pharmaceutical in history."

That from the apparently unapologetic lips of Dr. Steven E. Nissen, described as "lead investigator in an earlier clinical trial of torcetrapib, a heart-disease medication that Pfizer has shelved." 

As the linked article says:

"Eighty-two people had died so far in a clinical trial, versus 51 people in the same trial who had not taken it. "   


Yep, real damned shame about those lost sales.