OSHA's Ed Foulke: Promises to Be 'Fair and Balanced'

Ed Foulke's hometown paper (hometown before he moved to the reddest of red states, South Carolina), the Morning Call has an article about his nomination as Assistant Secretary of Labor in charge of OSHA.

And almost unheard of in present-day journalism, the Morning Call's intrepid reporter actually stepped outside the bounds of OSHA's official press release to interview a real expert on the subject:

Jordan Barab, a former OSHA official, a labor spokesman and author of Confined Space, a Web log, said the nomination is good for business owners but bad for workers. He said Foulke has spent most of his career trying to undermine the goals of OSHA.

"His practice revolves around defending companies against OSHA and how they can fight citations," Barab said. "And his firm is well-known as a union-busting firm."

Foulke countered that he took a fair and balanced approach as chairman of the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission and will do the same as head of OSHA. "We didn't decide all in favor of OSHA or all in favor of employers," he said. "I believe I left the review commission a better agency and its decisions were more respected." (emphasis added)

"Fair and balanced." Now, where have I heard that before?

Oh yeah.