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2004-12-05 Home Front: WoT

Tommy IdiotBoy Thompson Goes Out In Style

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Posted by .com 2004-12-05 1:22:04 PM|| || Front Page|| [1 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 In a phrase, Tommy Thompson shows why he was completely out of his depth as a cabinet secretary.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2004-12-05 1:35:38 PM|| [http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2004-12-05 1:35:38 PM|| Front Page Top

#2 I have to admit that Thompson's comments were the strangest that I have ever heard from a man that I formerly respected. Maybe he was pushed out. Maybe he is suffering from the early phases of dementia. Maybe he was abducted by aliens and this is a replacement. In any event, he can't leave soon enough now.

Posted by RWV 2004-12-05 1:37:33 PM|| 2004-12-05 1:37:33 PM|| Front Page Top

#3 I don't know about food, but an attack with a person to person communicable fatal disease (Ebola?) would be devastating - worse than a nuclear attack. All it would take is one person going around smearing the contents of a vial on a handrail once a week.

Posted by phil_b 2004-12-05 2:21:12 PM|| 2004-12-05 2:21:12 PM|| Front Page Top

#4 Thompson's complete quote was not cited in this article. In other articles I read, he was responding to a direct question raised by reporters at the press conference as to what his biggest worries were as he was leaving federal government. He said he had 2 main worries:dangers from a global flu outbreak and a possible terror attack on the nation's food supply. Then he eleborated on those 2 concerns by saying, as it applies to the latter:
"For the life of me, I cannot understand why the terrorists have not attacked our food supply because it is so easy to do," Thompson said as announced his departure before department employees. "We are importing a lot of food from the Middle East, and it would be easy to tamper with that." He also said that while inspections of food imports have increased dramatically, they remain "a very minute amount" and that better technologies are desperately needed. Food poisoning, Thompson said, is something he worries about "every single night."

Thompson wasn't exactly giving away secretive information to OBL or planting ideas for future acts of terrorism in AQ's minds. I think AQ had figured out a while ago that our food and water supply are nice soft targets.

If anything, I am grateful that Thompson went on public record to remind Congress that there's a caveat to removing trade barriers with Third World countries where sanitary agricultural practices are iffey or worse still, where extremists may lurk, and that Congress can't just be motivated by $; it needs to approve $ to have proper checks inplace on our side of the border re: what's being imported for sale in US supermarkets.

So how do these comments make Thompson beyond his depth or suffering from early phases of dementia?

Posted by Glomosing Crong 2004-12-05 2:26:08 PM|| 2004-12-05 2:26:08 PM|| Front Page Top

#5 I think that Thomson ate some of that contaminated food for lunch before the press conference, then during the conference, the toxins kicked in. This is an idiotic statement. It is true that the US food supply is vulnerable, but deal with it in Homeland Security, not the MSM.

Posted by Alaska Paul 2004-12-05 4:50:13 PM|| 2004-12-05 4:50:13 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 Perhaps Thompson has dealt with Homeland Secuirty only to find it an issue subject to a turf war. I can easily see the FDA (HHS), HS and even the Dept of Agriculture getting into a turf war over this issue with no progress being made. Some times the press is useful as a means to get such controversies refocused for outside the beltway priorities. If that's the case, it's not dumb. It the probelm is being effectively attacked it is.

Posted by Mrs. Davis 2004-12-05 5:15:23 PM|| 2004-12-05 5:15:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 Glomosing Crong, while there may be considerable truth in what TT says, saying it in a press conference is the equivalent of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. Yes, he isn't telling technologically sophisticated terrorists anything they don't already know, but he is titillating a legion of unstable wannabes looking for their 15 minutes of fame. The last tampering scare, in October 1982, involving cyanide laced Tylenol capsules, spawned imitators throughout the country. Hopefully noone will take TT's words as a way to settle a score and blame it on terrorists.

Posted by RWV 2004-12-05 7:43:12 PM|| 2004-12-05 7:43:12 PM|| Front Page Top

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