Politics. Former Tennessee House Majority Leader, Bill Purcell, is not to be believed but he does tell a great story. It isn’t that he lies but that he understands too much fidelity to the facts can really slow down a good yarn.
Purcell claims some years ago that the Tennessee House of Representatives was considering, in the final stages of legislation, a bill that made it permissible to shoot a dog that was on attack.
This part of the story can be verified.
Because it sounds so reasonable - who wouldn’t want to stop a rapid dog from taking off your ear? - the bill traveled a path of consent for months. It was in these later stages, through some quirk of media coverage, it became known as the “dog shooting bill.”
It is at this point in the telling where the tale becomes more important than the facts.
The morning of the final vote, Purcell’s wife sent him off to the state capitol warning him not to vote for killing dogs. By the time he arrived at his office, dog owners across the state had been alerted that the government was going to declare open season on Pickles.
Mayhem ensued.
Because the bill had hurdled all the legislative requirements it was gaveled in later that day. Then dog lovers really went nuts.
House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, who ruled the Democratic super-majority with an iron hand, appeared in Purcell’s office with a demand.
“Make it go away.”
To this day, Purcell claims no one knows where that bill went. Procedure and law would suggest it should have appeared in the Clerk’s office to be enrolled and sent over to the Senate.
Instead, the bill simply disappeared.
The point of the story, no matter the embellishment, is that frequently bad ideas can appear to be good ones simply because they run into opposition a little too late, if at all. In those cases, when the tide turns, it is best to get out of the way and save yourself (politically).
Policy. Perhaps not as dramatic as deep-sixing a bill permitting the daylight murder of your favorite canine, the past week has been marked by several meaningful pandemic policy disappearing acts.
Following an announcement of the end of the Public Health Emergency in the U.S. on May 11, the World Health Organization has declared an end to the Global Health Emergency.
Consistent with the end of the U.S. Public Health Emergency, vaccine mandates were lifted at CMS-credentialled facilities, which is to say virtually all health care providers.
Dr. Anthony Fauci began offering defense of his record, especially as it relates to school closures, by explaining that he was never in favor of them. American Federation of Teachers Union president Randi Weingarten followed suit by pointing out her billions of dollars in advocacy for unachievable school reopening criteria.
The coup de grace, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, chosen as Director of the Centers for Disease Control more for her malleability and political naivete than her competence, was dispatched by the White House.
It is as if the White House, after years of declaring things like “we must learn to live with COVID" and "prepare for the next pandemic" just wants it to go away.
Power. Putting some of the most egregious public health policies behind us will not be as easy as Dr. Fauci’s memory loss and ending Dr. Walensky’s gaffe prone Congressional testimonies. Allysia Finley at the Wall Street Journal provides the latest accounting of ongoing pandemic policy harms, many of which you have read in detail here as well.
The White House’s problem is that narrative control has all but ended. The echo chamber of social media and the role of government in limiting dissenting by credentialled and evidence-based views is being tested by Twitter’s new policies and a lawsuit brought against Big Tech companies by the Attorney Generals of Missouri and Louisiana.
Former New York Times reporter and overall pain-in-the-ass, Alex Berenson has filed suit against President Biden, former White House pandemic advisor and health policy wannabe, Andy Slavitt, and former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, alleging first amendment violations.
The battalion of lawyers involved have almost certainly advised their clients to confine social media posts to cat videos. Into that silent gap now falls the very urgent and insistent voices of those who favor evidence-based approaches to public health. To be followed, it is certain, by those aggrieved.
While many people, including those reading this, just want to move on. The reality of a healthy political system is debate, dissent, compromise and reckoning. As much as one might like "making it go away" it is not an option here.
Nor should we want it to be.
Have a great rest of your weekend.
Emily Evans
Managing Director – Health Policy
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(Politics, Policy & Power is published in the quiet of Sunday afternoon or holiday Monday and attempts to weave together the disparate forces shaping health care. It makes no attempt to defend or prosecute the views of any established political party or cause. Any conclusions to the contrary rest with the reader alone.)
