Eight Simple Rules for Being the Surgeon General
Surgeon General. Seems like an awesome job, right? You get to be a "Vice Admiral" in something calld the "Public Health Service Commissioned Corps," which means wearing an awesome uniform, you get to boss people around about smoking and shit, and we're pretty sure you get to decide which little orphan boys on organ donor waiting lists live and which ones die. So leave it the the Bush administration to take that awesome job and turn it into a messy partisan freakshow.
Here were the rules former Surgeon General Richard Carmona had to follow during his term:
* No stem cells.
* Or Plan B.
* Or sex ed in general.
* Secondhand smoke is good for you.
* "Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches."
* And most of all, donotattend the Special Olympics. "I was specifically told by a senior person, 'Why would you want to help those people?' " Dr. Carmona said. It's unclear whether they meant the retards or the Kennedys.