James Baker
The Bush family janitor.
Posted Friday, Nov. 17, 2000
But now that the Bushes are desperate again, Baker has been summoned from obscurity—advising merchant banks, negotiating for the United Nations in Western Sahara—to save them one more time.
Baker has responded with his usual pomposity. He has gone before the nation to warn us that Gore's vote challenges are embarrassing the United States abroad, that the dragged-out election is a "danger to democracy," and that Gore should bow out for "the good of the country."
The Bush campaign is counting on Baker's image as a statesman to advance Dubya's claim to the presidency. Don't you dare call Baker a mere politician. The Washington establishment considers him the greatest of all Republican mandarins.
He was nicknamed the Velvet Hammer and gained a reputation for skillful tactics and honest negotiation. With the smugness that only the combination of Texas and the Ivy League can produce, Baker settled for an aide's role because he knew he was better than the pols he served.
But Baker's vaunted integrity is largely a euphemism for his real gift: the ability to keep his hands clean. Part of this is PR. Baker is a world-class flatterer of reporters. He cultivated the journalists covering him and leaked copiously.

Despite Baker's statesman persona, he will probably be remembered for being what he hates: a handler. He had a few modest achievements at State and Treasury but never had any vision for the jobs beyond his next tactical move. Instead, Baker's legacy is as paramedic for dying campaigns.

It's hard not to suspect that, at some deep level, Baker remains disappointed with himself. He hates his Mr. Fix-It reputation. He reportedly wanted to vomit when Time put him on the cover as Bush's "handler." He loathed traveling with Bush because he was treated like "a goddamn butler." He called his campaign work for Ford "demeaning."

Yet he can't seem to stay away. The Florida mess may give Baker the satisfaction of knowing that the Bushes can't live without him. But schlepping to Florida to clean up another Bush mess surely makes him seethe. He wanted to be one of the powers that be. Instead he's America's most famous janitor.


Copyright 1995 Ohio Parents for Vaccine Safety
CDC Crystal Ball
Influenza virus strains mutate, necessitating a new vaccine each year. Technicians affiliated with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collect influenza viruses from pigs and people in foreign lands, e.g. China. CDC personnel then attempt to predict which viruses will infect people in the U.S. the following year…the CDC crystal ball. These CDC-selected viruses are distributed to vaccine manufacturers early in the year for influenza vaccine production for administration that autumn.
Flu shot history is replete with examples of poor matches between influenza viruses in the vaccine and those actually infecting people.
Despite its poor track record in predicting which influenza viruses will infect communities, the CDC claims that influenza vaccine is "approximately 70%" effective in preventing influenza in "healthy persons less than 65 years of age" If "there is a good match between vaccine and circulating viruses"Results for the 1989-1990 season were described as "mixed at best", with "medicare payments…..significantly higher for those who had been vaccinated".
Government agencies "calculated" an economic benefit of flu shots to Medicare by manipulating numbers in a computerized simulation until desirable results were obtained.
Considering that more than 90% of pneumonia and influenza deaths occur in persons 65 years of age or older
Health authorities in other countries do not share the U.S. public health community's enthusiasm for influenza vaccine.

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