the citizen-viewer

I meant to comment on this a couple of weeks ago. Kristen Lombardi reported in the Village Voice:

Just two months ago, George Bush's administration offered Hillary Clinton a deal. If the New York junior senator quit blocking the president's nominee to head the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, she'd get something in return—a decision on over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill...

The senator got all the necessary assurances. Health and Human Services secretary Michael Leavitt promised in a July 13 letter that the FDA, under his oversight, "will act on this application by September 1." And Senator Michael Enzi, the Republican chair of the committee handling the nomination, on which Clinton sits, pledged to hold a hearing if the promise wasn't kept. And so Clinton, along with her colleague Patty Murray of Washington, got out of the way. Five days later, the Senate confirmed the new FDA commissioner, Lester Crawford.

Then came August 26, when Crawford announced his agency was taking "action" on the morning-after pill, or Plan B. The FDA did not do what Clinton had anticipated -- that is, unveil a ruling on whether to make Plan B available without a prescription. Instead, it indefinitely postponed any ruling.

As Lombardi reports, Clinton was outraged. She and Murray put out a statement that surely shook the administration to its very foundations.

"Based on your promise that FDA would deliver a yes or no answer by September 1, we entered into a good faith agreement and lifted our hold on the President’s nominee to head the agency," they wrote. "It is a breach of faith to have this administration give us their word that a decision would be made, and have that promise violated."

A breach of faith, they say. Is that what you call it when you agree to screw your constituents today, if they promise to screw theirs in a few months -- and then your constituents get screwed both times? What were Clinton and Murray expecting?

First of all, when you get suckered, don't publicize it. Change the subject.

Better yet, have some principles, and stick to them.