Washington - U.S. Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman canceled a taped speech to a meat industry group after its executive director said new food safety rules were intended to distract attention away from President Clinton's troubles, administration sources said.
National Meat Association Executive Director Rosemary Mucklow told Food Chemical News that USDA's expansion of E.coli testing to cover meat products other than ground beef was an attempt to make good news in Washington.
"This is just another step in this administration's obfuscation of the impeachment activities,” Mucklow said.
Glickman canceled the speech he was scheduled to deliver to the group in February via satellite and in a letter to Mucklow said he was "deeply and personally offended.”
"I am sorry that a subject as important as food safety has been marred by what I believe to be your intemperate remarks,” Glickman wrote.
This is the second time this month that Glickman has tussled with farm groups about their comments regarding President Clinton's impeachment and Senate trial for allegedly lying to a grand jury about his affair with former intern Monica Lewinsky.
Earlier, Glickman threatened to cancel a speech to the American Farm Bureau, the largest U.S. farm group, after its president, Dean Kleckner, made an oblique reference to Clinton during a keynote speech at the group's annual convention in Albuquerque.
"We need people of conviction, not those who should be convicted,” Kleckner said to the applause of about 6,000 farmers.
Glickman "was very serious about canceling,” an Administration official said. But Kleckner later apologized for his remarks at the convention and to Glickman, who spoke to the group the next day, saying that Clinton was the farmer's friend.
Meat Industry Insights News Service
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