Remove All Doubt
Tuesday, December 30
 
Really, eveything is the president's fault. Everything

The phenomenon of Bush hatred has been well documented, and it has even been praised as a rational reaction to events by such paragons of reasonable analysis as EJ Dionne in today's Post (remember, Dionne is #1 on Lying in Pond's "Positive Democratic Index"). So perhaps it's no surprise that the president is being blamed for the mad cow scare (see, e.g., this Post editorial cartoon). Even Howard Dean has been piling on, blaming the administration's failure to devise a plan for instant traceability that would have cut the problem short, if not solved it.

It must break these folks' hearts to read the news this morning:
A U.S. Holstein probably was infected with mad cow disease before safety bans were enacted in 1997 on feed in the United States and Canada, officials said yesterday.

The infection probably occurred around the same time as a beef cow from the Canadian province of Alberta became sick. Scientists may need to increase monitoring of thousands of cattle born before the bans were enacted on potentially infected feed, through which the disease spreads. The animals are now spread across the continent.

"The age of the animal is especially important because it is a likely explanation" for the Holstein's infection, said W. Ron DeHaven, deputy administrator and chief veterinary officer at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "She was born before feed bans were implemented in North America."
So, this cow was born at a time before there are any safety regulations here or in Canada and when Clinton was president. The animals have spread all over the continent and been intermixed with other cows. It's a serious problem - I don't mean to minimize it. But it is hard for me to see how one can even argue coherently that it's the president's fault. Althogh, coherent arguments aren't really the issue here . . .
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