Ntl Review

Galling
Hillary Clinton's new crusade. By NR’s John J. Miller & Ramesh Ponnuru
April 27, 2001 1:35 p.m.

The junior senator from New York has decided to pick a fight with the Bush administration — over baby-bath seats. Actually, Hillary Clinton is opposing President Bush's nominee to head the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Mary Sheila Gall. "The manufacturers wanted a philosophical shift when it came to consumer product safety," says Hillary Clinton. "This is a political appointment."

Well, yes, it is a political appointment — and the Senate must approve Gall before she can take over. That shouldn't be too hard. President Clinton actually reappointed her as a regular member of the commission a few years ago. (Sen. Clinton didn't make her opposition known back then.)

The case against Gall is rather weak. Of course, it doesn't seem that way when presented through the filter of liberal media bias. Here's how USA Today explained Clinton's rationale: Gall opposes a "proposed regulation of baby-bath seats, which have been associated with 67 infant deaths."

Sixty-seven dead babies! One envisions horrific scenes of desperate parents trying to pry their poor babies from the clutch of seats that somehow suck children into a deadly vortex.

But that's not exactly what's happening. As the Washington Post pointed out in a more balanced story on Gall, "There have been 67 deaths associated with the product, most occurring when the parents left a baby unattended."

Aha! So babies drown when parents put them in bathtubs and leave the room. Long ago, when some people still cared about such antiquated notions as personal responsibility, there was a word for this: negligence.

Perhaps there's a compromise available here. After all, babies are dying. In the spirit of "changing the tone," let us advance a modest proposal: Ban water.

-- Anonymous, April 27, 2001