Let’s Operate Without A Surgeon General

A televised showdown, a career on the line, the president’s clout at stake, left vs. right zanies screaming.

Yep, the nomination fight of Dr. Henry Foster to be surgeon general is one of those highdecibel dramas that jacks up adrenaline in the Imperial City.

Also much ado about nothing.

While rhetorical bang-bang over Dr. Foster goes into the nuclear range, stop for a question:

Why in the world do we need a surgeon general?

I mean, why pay a doc $130,000, dress him or her in a Gilbert & Sullivan uniform, and react as though every utterance came from Olympus?If Newt Gingrich and rebels are hell-bent on chopping big government, why not axe this make-believe job of America’s Doc?Why the energy-wasting partisan brawls - the Foster fight one of many soap operas - over who’ll be surgeon general?

The answer may be depressingly simple: C. Everett Koop.

Before Koop came along in the Reagan era, a surgeon general was a figurehead, an unknown. Koop had been Henry Foster in reverse.

Senate Democrats didn’t want him. He was an aging Philadelphia pediatrician advertised as a Christian fundamentalist, fiercely anti-abortion. But Koop, whose white goatee made him a Colonel Sanders look-alike, jolted both sides, especially Reaganauts.

Sex education in kindergarten? Abortion for pregnant women with AIDS? Condom ads on television? Koop’s shock-a-minute pronouncements made Dr. Joycelyn Elders seem like a Girl Scout den mother.

“I am the surgeon general of heterosexuals and homosexuals, young and old, married and unmarried, moral and immoral,” thundered damnthe-torpedoes Koop.

After Koop, the surgeon general was a lightning rod for left and right.

Henry Foster is the latest post-Koop victim zapped by political electrical storms.

By all accounts, Foster is a good man, a Nashville doctor with a 38-year record of delivering 10,000 babies, helping folks, preaching against teenage pregnancy.

His chances of getting past the Senate: Slim and none.

“Am I intimidated? No. And I’m not being immodest or cocky,” said Foster. “But this is the only place where I get a chance to define who Henry Foster is. I want this hearing.”

“He deserves to be more than a political football,” said President Clinton. “If we can’t confirm Henry Foster, what kind of person can we confirm?”

In truth, Foster is getting his moment of truth because Bill Clinton would outrage key constituencies - blacks and pro-choice groups - by backing off his troubled nomination.

That leaves Foster as losing pawn in a four-way game: White House blunders, anti-abortion zealotry, race and Republican presidential egos.

No surprise Clinton & Co. chose a minority, prochoice doctor for surgeon general. In a dispiriting, oft-repeated fiasco, it bungled the nomination. Abortions in Foster’s past - one or 20 or 39 - emerged in damning bits.

Gleeful anti-Foster drumming by right-wing and anti-abortion groups was crystallized in an Eagle Forum broadside: “Abortionist-General To Replace Condom Queen.”

“Abortion is at the heart of this,” admitted Sen. Nancy Kassebaum, R-Kan., chair of the hearings.

Presidential candidates Bob Dole and Phil Gramm are playing an ugly, egotistical game: Who can be meaner on Henry Foster?

Gramm vowed to filibuster against Foster on the Senate floor. (No way Clinton can find 61 votes to beat a talkathon.) Dole, pandering shamelessly to the Christian right, one-upped Gramm. Why, he might not let Foster’s nomination come to a floor vote.

Maybe Foster can go to C. Everett Koop for consolation. Koop also was controversial, stalled in the Senate doldrums for months. He survived to become a galling Jeremiah. After Koop, the surgeon general post would be a kickball for leftvs.-right furies.

Phony game, useless job. When the Foster circus ends and the doomed doc’s on his way home, ask again: Why do we need a surgeon general?

Give the $130,000 to a soup kitchen. Send the uniform to Goodwill. For sexual advice, ask Dr. Ruth.

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