Iowa Senator Charles Grassley says if two people know a secret in Washington, it’s out…but nobody seems to know yet who the president will nominate to fill the empty seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. One name being bandied about is that of Alberto Gonzales, who president Bush brought from Texas to be his Attorney General in Washington, but Grassley says Gonzales has weak support among conservatives.He was “just barely approved” for Attorney General with conservative support, so Grassley says with liberals against him, Gonzales may not have enough votes to be approved for a Supreme Court seat. Still, Grassley’s heard rumors a justice might be named this week. Iowa’s Republican U.S. senator also said in this morning’s teleconference with Iowa reporters that he opposed Monday’s confirmation of Lester Crawford as permanent head of the Food and Drug Administration. Grassley says Crawford was a 30-year veteran of a bureaucracy that’s been slow to pull dangerous products from the market, like anti-depressants linked to teen suicide and the painkiller Vioxx that’s blamed for heart attacks and strokes. “It just seems to me like there’s a culture at the FDA where they’re worried about their own public relations; they maintain a cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry,” Grassley says, adding he wanted the agency to bring in someone from outside to “clean the mess up.” But it didn’t and he voted against the confirmation of Crawford, which nevertheless passed the Senate yesterday.
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