Had a nice chat with Ed O’Keefe at 6:45 AM this morning (do you ever notice how people in DC think that their time must be your time?) for his post this afternoon – “Outspoken Food Safety Advocate Wants In.” Here is part of the post:

Two leading candidates have emerged to serve as the Agriculture Department’s undersecretary for food safety, which leads the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS). But there’s an "outside the box" and "outside the Beltway" candidate eager and ready to give up his comfortable private sector life for the less lucrative government job.

Bill Marler is a Seattle-area attorney who specializes in food safety litigation. His passion and concern about food safety inspired him to launch a blog, MarlerBlog.com, which he updates several times a day with news and his views on the issue. Most recently he has focused almost exclusively on the nationwide salmonella outbreak linked to peanut butter and peanut paste that may be responsible for seven deaths.

"If this does not catch President Obama’s attention, I do not know what will," he wrote last week. "Hey, Mr. President, call me, I’ll work for peanuts."

Frankly, friends who know me ask why I would be willing to give up a well-paid job holding companies accountable for sickening their customers. The short answer – to serve. The longer answer is in a post I did several months ago – “Open Letter to a New Under Secretary for Food Safety – FSIS.” 

I do not need a new job, I actually love the job I have.