A Former Ag Secretary Obtained Superior at Ducking Meals

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If you had to name the “most assaulted Cabinet member in historical past,” the identify Dan Glickman probably wouldn’t be at the major of the record. But in an excerpt of his new memoir in Politico Journal, Glickman lays assert to that unwanted title. He served as agriculture secretary under Bill Clinton from 1995 to 2001, and he points out that he took business office “at an attention-grabbing time” since a strong discussion about natural food was just finding underway. Foods activism turned a detail, and Glickman—as the experience of the White Household meals policies—bore the brunt in a quite tactile way. That is, folks stored throwing food items at him. He ticks off a amount of incidents, starting up with the time bare protesters pelted him with organic seeds in Rome. But he also obtained hit with bison guts in Wyoming, carbonated soda throughout a Household hearing, and a tofu pie in DC.&#13

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“I have by no means heard of any previous Agriculture secretaries staying subjected to the similar volume of projectiles as I was in the course of my time at USDA,” writes Glickman. “To my know-how nobody has had any memory of a Cupboard member who came close to my report.” The piece is normally light-hearted, as he recounts fearful phone calls from his mom immediately after just about every incident, along with his enhancing reflexes as the assaults turned more common. The tofu pie, for occasion, scored much more of a immediate hit on Health and fitness and Human Services chief Donna Shalala since Glickman ducked. But the previous ag secretary also sees in all this hints of a shifting political culture. “In a way, I imagine my profession was a preview of the incivility that would at some point engulf our politics only alternatively of barrages of hateful tweets and community harassment, I got meals thrown in my experience.” Examine the total excerpt. (Study additional Department of Agriculture tales.)&#13