Another Botched Job? : Poor staff work at White House imperils Foster

Leon E. Panetta, the White House chief of staff, acknowledges that Administration officials “did not serve the President well” when they failed to look as fully as political circumstances demanded into the background of Dr. Henry Foster Jr., the obstetrician-gynecologist who has been nominated by President Clinton to be the surgeon general. The admission, however, was misdirected. Although Clinton was once again ill-served by his aides, the real victim in this instance is Foster, who has been needlessly humiliated and had his credibility questioned because inexcusably poor staff work failed to anticipate or prepare him for the questions that would inevitably be asked about his experiences with abortion.

The existence of a politically influential anti-abortion lobby is not exactly a secret in Washington, and the President’s choice of an obstetrician-gynecologist as the nation’s top medical official should have alerted even the sleepiest White House aide to what could be expected. But there is no evidence that the White House in fact anticipated trouble, and certainly it was anything but well-prepared. Pressured by the White House to give a tally on the abortions he had performed, Foster guessed about a dozen. Only well into the controversy did a study of his medical records for the last 38 years fix on 39 as the actual number.

That Foster in the course of a long and honorable career performed abortions--a procedure he says he personally abhors--is in no way disqualifying. The problem is that the mishandling of this matter has deepened the ordeal that he will face in the confirmation process.

Botched White House staff work earlier helped sink the prospects of Zoe Baird, Kimba Wood and Lani Guinier. It’s time for the message to get through at the White House that enough is enough.