saving the children, one banned book at a time
August 5, 2009 2 Comments
A Time for Anger: Fisking the Times
No sooner did he post that than I learned that, after months of pleas from the small business community, the New York Times (the so-called paper of record) finally decided to cover some of the central elements of the legislation. Except that it was not an article discussing the potential costs of the legislation; nor was it even an article discussing the debate over the legislation at all. No. It was an unsigned editorial. Alleging that CPSIA hasn’t been enforced aggressively enough, and that therefore the commissioner of the CPSC must go. Any reading of the editorial makes clear that the Times did not bother to research what the law actually says or how it is supposed to be implemented. Instead, it appears that they merely regurgitated the talking points of the handful of Dem politicians and interest groups who continue to support the law in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is an abject lesson in the problem of unintended consequences.
Not surprisingly, Walter Olson is angry. He zones in on one particularly offensive paragraph of the editorial and destroys it.
Well, I’m pretty angry myself. So I think it’s worth doing a full fisking of this stinking heap of ignorance. The editorial starts:
The American International Toy Fair in New York City this week has offered the newest and most tantalizing playthings in the world: walking plastic bugs, 3-D coloring sets, even Barbie, now 50 and wearing a golden outfit for the occasion. Yet one question hovered over the fair and its glittering new gizmos. Can the federal government assure consumers that the toys are safe?
Knowing a little bit about the Toy Fair, I can assure you, loyal readers, that the actual question hanging over the Fair was “Does anyone have any idea how you are going to comply with this law when it goes completely into effect without going out of business?”
As many parents, and ultimately manufacturers, learned the hard way, the Bush administration did not make the safety of toys and other products a priority. That led to the recall of millions of toys — some because of lead paint, others because of hazards such as small and powerful magnets that children swallowed. The Obama administration now has an opportunity to fill that regulatory gap by appointing new leadership for the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
So the problem here is that the Bush Administration failed to enforce existing safety laws, thereby leading to the recall of millions of toys? Now, I’m no fan of the Bush Administration, but this seems a little silly. How does the Times think that these toys were recalled? Isn’t the remedy for a prohibited product getting on the market to recall it and to penalize the importer? And isn’t that precisely what happened? And how many injuries were reported as a result of these products getting recalled? The answer is one (sadly it was a death) – except that the product that caused that death was perfectly legal under the then-existing standards, and is actually still legal under the new CPSIA standards since it was made for an adult.
February 19, 2009 7 Comments
