Forbes.com: US consumer groups blame Bush for large meat recalls

I don't know if the Administration has told the USDA to back off and give meatpackers the benefit of the doubt. But it wouldn't surprise me given their attitude in other areas where the interests of ordinary citizens and those of large corporations clash. But that's what you get for voting for a Republican, not that most people did.

To be fair to Bush & Co., (oh, it hurts!) there were several meat recalls in the nineties as well, some of them pretty substantial. There were also a number of E. coli-related deaths. But I think the scale of tainted meat -- topped by Sunday's record poultry recall -- is greater than in previous years.