WASHINGTON.
SEN. Hillary Rodham Clinton is once again picking a fight with President Bush, threatening now to vote against his choice to run the Food and Drug Administration.
A Post review reveals that Clinton has voted against seven of the 21 nominees Bush has submitted to the Senate so far for a roll-call vote – more than any of her 99 other colleagues.
Clinton recently joined a band of six other Democrats warning Bush not to pick anyone from the drug industry to head the FDA, calling it “an irresolvable conflict of interest.”
Bush is close to tapping either Michael Astrue, who works for a biotech startup firm, or Eve Slater, who works for Merck, to take over the FDA.
Clinton and others say the FDA ought to be managed by a career FDA bureaucrat or someone with an academic background.
Clinton is already leading the charge in a separate battle against another Bush nominee: Mary Sheila Gall, whom Bush selected to serve as head of the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
“I’m convinced that this would not be the best choice,” said Clinton yesterday, slamming Bush for picking Gall, whom she said will take CPSC “backward instead of forward.”
Gall, a Buffalo native who worked for then-New York Sen. James Buckley and then-Rep. Jack Kemp, goes before the Senate’s Commerce Committee today for a hearing.
Clinton and other critics say Gall’s wariness of government regulation spells danger for consumers.
But Gall’s defenders question whether Clinton is simply looking out for Ann Brown, who would be dumped by Gall’s promotion. Brown is a longtime Clinton pal who gave $2,000 to her campaign and lots more to other Democrats.
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The Post learned that Bill Clinton quietly slipped up to Capitol Hill a week ago, paying his first-ever visit to Hillary in her office. “She’s got a lot of good, young people working for her,” the former president said.
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A new Pew Research poll is out, and it seems First Lady Laura Bush, who is hardly known, is a little more popular than was Hillary, who was very well known as first lady.
At this point in the Clinton administration, 29 percent had an unfavorable opinion of Hillary, while 17 percent hold the same view of Laura.