Bush’s appointments laughable

Your much beloved political columnist for The Daily Beacon, Jon Fish, has decided to resign his position in order to pursue other opportunities.

On October 5 at 5:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, I was nominated by President George W. Bush to be the next Surgeon General.

That’s correct.

I, a student of the social sciences that still lacks any degree whatsoever and whose only experience with human biology is the low B I made in Introduction to Anthropology three years ago, will be setting the precedents of the United States government on all health and medical concerns.

I was selected over hundreds of thousands of better candidates (medical doctors, for example) because I accidentally flipped my television to FOX News the other day when I dropped the remote. The administration construed this as a sign of support and contacted me three hours later with the news of my nomination.

I’m certainly just as qualified as any of the rest of Bush’s appointees.

Take, for example, the new nominee to the Supreme Court, Harriet Miers. Miers has never even served as a judge, and now she could potentially be a justice on the highest court in the nation.

There is absolutely no public record of her opinion on constitutional law, nor has she argued a case before the Supreme Court. In fact, she has never worked as a lawyer representing the government, circumscribing herself solely to private law practice. But don’t doubt her qualifications; she did head up the Texas Lottery Commission, after all.

Miers is such a flimsy attempt to pack the court with unqualified unknowns and right-wing nutjobs that even other right-wing nutjobs are opposing her. Tent Lott told the press that he was “not comfortable” with the Meirs nomination.

In an editorial for The National Conservative Weekly entitled “Republican Senators Should Not Rally Around Their President,” Pat Buchanan said that “George W. Bush asks too much,” in expecting conservatives to “trust him” with Miers. Buchanan observed that, “Twenty-four hours after he picked his personal lawyer for the Supreme Court, George Bush was in the Rose Garden trying to put out the firestorm he had ignited in his own base camp. How’s that for political brilliance?”

With all this speculation and fear within the dominant party, I expect the Senate to take at least a week before they capitulate in order to toe the party line and confirm Miers for the highest court in the country.

There are plenty of other tragically famous nominations for vitally important roles in the federal government, like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. He has extensive experience with war, having had a big hand in facilitating the sale of weapons to Iraq in the 1980s; weapons that they are now being used against American soldiers in the very war he started.

I believe that it was Rumsfeld’s experience running a pharmaceutical company that prepared him to develop such ingenious military tactics as the “Rumsfeld Doctrine,” in which he claimed that small forces with no support can easily overthrow an entire country with little to no resistance and only a minor insurgency that would taper off in a matter of weeks.

Anyway, I take back all the nasty things I’ve said about the Bush administration. They’re some really swell folks. And I’m not just saying that because they’ve given me a relatively powerful government position with a very high public profile.

I can’t wait ’til I get to Washington to start my new job. There’s a whole bunch of changes I’m going to make. First, I’m taking the War on Drugs to the next level. My first target will be right-wing radio hosts who are addicted to OxyContin yet demand drug abusers face the maximum possible prison sentences.

But I don’t plan on being one of those controversial Surgeon Generals like Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who recommended that masturbation be taught in schools as an alternative to sexual intercourse to prevent teen pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

Instead, I’m going to go the opposite route and produce a public service announcement to be shown on all major television networks. This commercial will tell America’s youth the truth about masturbation: It gives you warts, makes you go blind and generally condemns you to Hell.

Remember kids: Every time you touch yourself, a terrorist strangles a puppy. They’re everywhere, and they will know.

Don’t let the terrorists win.

There are all sorts of neat little perks to being Surgeon General that I can’t wait to try out. Did you know that the Surgeon General gets a commissioned rank in the United States military? I get to be a Vice Admiral. That’s three stars! Almost everyone from privates to generals will have to salute me.

I also get to be the head of the Commissioned Corps, an organization of 6,000 medical personnel who are dispatched as first-responders to public health emergencies.

I wonder if that includes biological attacks? That’s okay, I know all about how anthrax works; I saw a special about it on the Discovery Channel — a two hour special.

You see? I’m more than cut out for this job. In fact, I think I was destined for it. Besides, it’s not like I’m going to be the head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency or anything.

P.S. — I’m not really quitting my job. Sorry if I got anyone’s hopes up.

— Jon Fish is a senior in Sociology. He can be reached at jfish@utk.edu or through his Web site at http://web.utk.edu/~jfish/.