What's the Bush Administration's Plan B?

President Bush this afternoon officially nominated Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach to run the Food and Drug Administration, setting off an immediate firestorm of criticism. Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA) pledged to block his appointment until the FDA comes up with a decision on over-the-counter Plan B, the morning-after contraceptive. All the science points to allowing its use; only the Bush administration's fealty to its religious base has held up approval.

What's the administration's strategy? Three possibilities. First, and most likely, is that Bush merely wanted to get Republicans like Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA), who had been pushing for a permanent appointment, off his back. Von Eschenbach can continue running FDA as interim head while blaming the lack of hearings on the Democrats.

This fits in well with a Karl Rovian polarization strategy for the fall elections. It mobilizes the conservative religious base by demonizing Hillary, pro-choicers and blue-staters generally as libertines who promote promiscuity.

Anther possibility is that von Eschenbach will finally come up with a decision. Just say no to Plan B. That mobilizes the base while giving Clinton, Murray and others middle-of-the-road Democrats an out from blocking his confirmation. They will still vote again him, of course. But he would win a party-line vote.

Of course, this runs the risk of antagonizing anyone who believes in science, freedom of choice and separation of church and state. But in the Bush-Rove imagination, that is a shrinking share of Americans anyway.

The third and most remote possibility is that von Eschenbach will approve Plan B. which is what he probably wants to do (I'm basing this on Connecticut Democratic Rep. Rosa DeLauro's kind words for von Eschenbach during a House appropriations hearing a few weeks back; she said she looked forward to his permanent appointment as head of FDA). If anyone other than ideologues were running the Republican Party, he'd be allowed to.

In an election year where the president's approval rating is hovering around 35 percent, the vice president's approval rating is among the lowest on record, and the lobbying scandals show no sign of abating, tacking to the middle to win centrist voters would seem to be the wise and prudent choice.

But as we long ago learned about this administration, prudence, wisdom and centrism are not qualities it has in abundance.

Posted by gooznews at March 15, 2006 06:06 PM