06.21.10
The Bad Penny turns up on the BP Commission
This blog has devoted some time to the biodefense industry lobby formerly called the Graham-Talent Commission. And what a nuisance it was.
For most of its tenure Graham-Talent existed only as an appendage/p.r firm for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center/Center for Biosecurity and the bioterror defense industry group, the Alliance for Biosecurity.
The US government eventually stopped underwriting it.
And although defunded, last week DD wrote of its latest piece of mischief, political legislation as advertising for the alleged wisdom of itself here.
Although few have yet to comment much on Barack Obama’s National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, appointed on May 22, it may be time to get the ball rolling on the potential trouble the President will eventually bring upon himself because of it.
One of the commission’s co-chairmen is none other than Bob Graham, THE Bob Graham of Graham-Talent.
It’s an atrocious choice.
Either the President never actually paid attention to what Graham-Talent did under Bob Graham, quite possible, because it existed only to plant news stories and opinion pieces busting his chops on bioterror defense. Or the President took counter-intuititive advice from the usual Whitehouse staffers, advice to appoint what amounts to a very bad penny, an infamous political hack always turning up. Someone who has established a set of dubious skills as a “commission chairman” when it’s important the commission so chaired will be friendly to whatever industry is connected to the problem it is charged with investigating.
Let me paint the unpretty picture for you.
If Bob Graham runs the BP Deepwater Horizon Commission the way he ran the WMD Commission, within about a year — or less — its staffers, advisers and consultants will all be stealth choices from BP, companies that worked with BP or other oil industry firms.
And that is because Bob Graham, and his compadre Jim Talent, allowed the WMD Commission to be taken over by staffers from the biodefense industry. And when this happened, it began issuing reports and press releases with only one purpose — to disguise calls for greater funding to the biodefense industry it represented behind an argument that the Obama administration was leaving the country unprepared for catastrophic bioterrorism.
For example, just last week, Jason Sigger at Armchair Generalist on Bob Graham’s latest piece of political chicanery — The WMD Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2010: “It’s a load of shit.”
Because no one really paid any attention to Graham-Talent except newspaper op-ed assigning editors and minor Congressional politicians willing to indulge their regular bashing of the Obama administration on bioterror preparedness, few have noticed how rancid and/or impressively cynical an excercise in national leadershig choosing Bob Graham is.
If you wanted to pick one of the worst people to head an independent commission on a catastrophe and national trauma that’s front page news everyday, one who — judging by his track record — would work to stuff his commission full of staff and advice from the industry the agency is supposed to be looking into, Bob Graham is the absolute go-to guy.
It’s an astonishing, eye-rolling thing.
One asks, rhetorically: What in Sam Hill is wrong with President Obama? Does he have a subconscious desire to set himself up? Or is it just more political expedience and daily not-paying-attention except for what the usual partymen have to say?
“The bipartisan commission named by President Obama in May to study the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the future of American offshore drilling will hold its first formal meeting in mid-July at the earliest, most likely delaying the delivery of its final report into next year, a co-chairman of the panel said in an interview,” wrote the New York Times a few hours ago.
Potentially giving it and Bob Graham plenty of time how to figure out to make it surreptitiously BP and oil industry friendly.
Just how bad was the Graham-Talent Commission? From the archives.