How can one write a swansong on Fran and omit Hurricane Katrina? Of course, how can one write an investigative report on the White House's Katrina response and make no mention of the hospital with the largest patient death toll? Fran omitted LifeCare's 24 patient deaths. Did she do so as a favor to The Carlyle Group, the private equity underwriter who purchased LifeCare just weeks before landfall?
Surely, as Carlyle closed in on the ManorCare deal, some members of the media picked this up and queried Fran, the White House, or members of Congress. If Carlyle can fail patients in one of twenty one long term acute care hospitals in a time of crisis, what can they do with 500 mostly nursing homes? Not a peep there either as the Justice Department played Santa and approved the deal just before Christmas. Fran left with so many unanswered questions.
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A Field General Departs
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While she may tout the Bush administration's progress in the war on terror, Townsend has had a few rough patches of late. On a trip to the Persian Gulf last month, she was embarrassed to discover that the government of Yemen had released a top suspect in the October 2000 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole—just a few days after she had met with the country's president and delivered a letter from President Bush praising his cooperation in the war on terror. On the same trip Townsend visited Saudi Arabia, where, according to some reports, she raised recent concerns from the U.S. intelligence community that the country is still serving as a source of funding for Al Qaeda and other terror groups. Townsend acknowledged Monday that there are continuing concerns about "financial flows out of Saudi Arabia," but says "the Saudis have made a good deal of progress."
The question that Townsend and the White House now face is whether the progress on that, and on many other fronts, has been sufficient to satisfy the country—especially given the upcoming election season. No word yet on who will be Townsend's replacement.
Terror Watch, written by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball , appears online weekly
© 2007
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