Friday, September 30, 2005

Appeared again (many times now) on the Lou Dobbs CNN Show to discuss bird flu. He obviously respects me very much. Of note, lately the DHHS people in OC (Bill Hall, Suzy DeFrancis Christina Pearson, and mostly Patti Conrad– I am not sure who is the culprit) have been hijacking the media requests for me when we ask for permission (routine) to accept. Usually these are “rubber stamp”; however they are trying to insert the secretary on shows that specifically ask for me. I feel that this is fine since the Secretary should trump everyone. However, they are lying about it since they are telling us that when they offer up the Secretary, the shows are glad to have the Secretary instead of me. However, I heard directly from Wolf Blitzer of CNN that he had specifically asked for me. The DHHS people called him up and said that I could not do it since I had a prior commitment and they suggest that the Secretary take my place. We had made it perfectly clear to the DHHS people that I was totally free and able to do it. They are really acting poorly. Why do not they just say that they want to insert the Secretary and not lie about it and give the networks the choice of me versus the Secretary. I guess I have no recourse. At the end of the day it will backfire on them.