The bully at HHS backs off, this time

Witness the prescient wisdom of Ralph Waldo Emerson who wrote, “Democracy becomes a government of bullies tempered by editors.” Now consider the story of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services v. Forest Laboratories.

When the Wall Street Journal pointed out the utter outrageousness of HHS’ threat to bar Forest Labs CEO Harold Solomon from doing business with the government, the department sent an in-your-face letter to the editor restating, for all intents and purposes, that “look out, there’s a new sheriff in town.”