Does He Get to Keep the Costume?

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According to The Washington Post, Surgeon General Richard Carmona quietly resigned last week—so quietly that I didn't notice until now. During his four-year tenure, the Arizona surgeon showed a propensity either to lie in the name of "the public health" or to be so clueless that he did not know when he was misrepresenting the facts. He was a bit less pompous than C. Everett Koop, although he wore the same silly uniform. Unlike Koop, who went after smokers first and later turned his attention to fatties, Carmona went after fatties and later turned his attention to smokers.

According to the Post, Carmona "said it would be all worth it if one student he talked to was dissuaded from making bad health choices, or if one mother quit smoking to improve her child's health." If that's all it takes to prevent the appointment of another national health scold, won't a teenage mother somewhere volunteer to stop smoking? Do it for your country.