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If you have little to no idea who David Satcher is, then he's doing a bang-up job and deserves high praise for escaping your attention. Mind you, Satcher is not a member of the Trilateral Commission, the Electoral College, Hill & Knowlton public relations, or any of the other semi-secret societies that decide global weather patterns or seasonal M & M's color schemes.
Since February, he has played the historic and often hysteric role of national scold, aka the US Surgeon General, a position so central to the dawn's early light and the twilight's last gleaming that it went unfilled for three-and-a-half years with nary a peep of voter discontent. In a political economy where the whole world is a Visa card with zero percent interest, let's give credit where credit is due: Satcher may well preserve his office by going largely unnoticed by the press, the public, and politicians.
Given the recent history of the job -- and it is a job, damn it, one that even comes with a uniform based on the Field Marshal's and those of several other powerful characters from Stratego -- the Jughead Jones in all of us can only applaud Dr. Satcher on his bold, hide-in-plain-sight strategy. His work avoidance allows him to lurk just beyond the attention of even the most interested political junkie, while still remaining visible enough to be recognized every payday without having to show ID. This is a tactic he no doubt adapted from the medically themed dramedy Diagnosis Murder, starring Dick Van Dyke -- or is it Dick Van Patten? -- currently in its in 43rd year on CBS -- or is it NBC? By all accounts, studio executives would cancel it if they only could verify its actual existence.
Indeed, if Satcher plays his cards right -- and his recent, widely reported, and immediately forgotten pronouncements about suicide, whatever they were, suggest that he could bluff his way to a US$20 pot with a pair of deuces -- he'll probably keep his current job even after John Glenn returns to Earth and, with the help of the Klingon attack force he contacted during Shuttle Mission STS-95, subjugates the entire planet to his evil will.
Satcher's performance is all the more impressive given the tumultuous tenure of his predecessor, Joycelyn Elders, who got the heave-ho in late 1994. Though her appointment as the nation's chief health officer necessitated the invention of an entirely new class of stretch fabrics for her uniform, upon appointment she was widely hailed as perfect for the job. But she didn't uphold the office's century-old tradition of high-minded, ceremonial invisibility. Instead, Elders turned out to be only slightly less of an Arkansas-based, sexually transmitted debacle for Bill Clinton than his recent affair.
In a rambling non sequitur, which itself bespoke intense familiarity with any number of controlled substances, Elders said that perhaps, maybe, conceivably the United States might consider looking into drug legalization. Such a statement, no matter how couched in qualifications and semantic incoherence, enraged a president, who as a point of pride, boasted on the campaign trail of setting up his half-brother, Ramada lounge performer Roger, in a drug sting. Roger, apparently still experiencing coke-fueled delusions, continues to thank his older sibling regularly for helping him get his act together and pointing him down the road of success.
Far more troubling, Elders also suggested that masturbation was "something that perhaps should be taught" in the nation's schools. Such a policy would have literally extended the long arm of the state into hitherto private regions and, if international comparisons of student achievement in math and science provide any indication, would have seriously threatened America's long-standing preeminence in self-gratification. Though Clinton had yet to declare the end of the Big Government era, he recognized federal overreach when he saw it and made Elders, technically a three-star admiral in both the US and KISS navies, walk the plank. It is widely believed that educators, angered at the prospect of fondling students on the time clock and fearful of increased certification requirements, also played a role in the decision to scuttle Elders.
To be fair, Elders was hardly the first Surgeon General to bite the hand that appointed her. Indeed, in doing so, she was merely following the four-lane superhighway of a trail blazed by Ronald Reagan's Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop. That Koop was able to embarrass a man who lionized SS officers, played straight man to a chimpanzee and actually wore a Tartan plaid suit in public on at least one occasion is no small feat. With his trademark Scooby Doo villain beard, Koop, who got the job chiefly because he had characterized abortion as "the slide to Auschwitz" and posed for pictures in Republican-friendly places like Sodom and Gomorrah, mortified the Reagan administration by eventually admitting that AIDS -- not to mention homosexuality and IV drug use -- actually existed.
Upon leaving office, the ever-ambitious Koop kicked it up to the next level and quickly achieved his goal of becoming a truly national pain in the ass. For millions of Americans, he remains to this day the mentally impaired grandparent who just never shuts up while spinning Larry King-esque anti-narratives. For instance, after leaving office, he penned an unintentionally revelatory autobiography, in which he discussed the magical powers inherent in what many would mistake for simple clothing: "Once confirmed, I was entitled to wear a uniform ... I put it on immediately.... There is something about a uniform. I had last worn one in my Boy Scout days ... There were a couple of times on airplanes when elderly women mistook me for a steward, handed me their luggage, and confidently assumed that I would put it in the overhead compartment. I always complied immediately." The moral of the story? With great uniforms, it appears, come great responsibilities.
Such literary outpourings have been matched by a stream of videos that languish undisturbed on Blockbuster's community-access shelves, the medical counterpart to erotic thrillers featuring Michael Dudikoff and Shannon Tweed. Untethered by an office but still in search of a captive audience, Koop now roams free, a mascot without a home team, the public health community's answer to the San Diego Chicken.
It's better, then, that the current Surgeon General -- good ol' what's-his-name -- has taken the path less traveled in recent years. David Satcher -- or is it Dick Van Patten? -- is following in the barely-visible footsteps of Antonia Novello, who occupied the position in the interregnum between Koop and Elders. Like her similarly named counterpart in the world of TV comedy, Don "Father Guido Sarducci" Novello, she managed to make virtually no impression on the public -- not a bad tactic at all when your best schtick is dressing up in a silly costume and addressing indifferent audiences who, if you're lucky, will forget they ever heard of you.
